Upheaval of the heart
by spwarkle
Summary: Mitchie never expected anything to come from her eighteenth birthday. Sure, she went to a Connect 3 concert, but she never expected the earthquake to hit and she certainly didn't expect Shane Grey to fall in love with her because of it...
1. Chapter 1

**Yes, story number 3 in progress… I'm not neglecting anything else, I promise but we've been studying earthquakes in school for weeks and I'm really sick of them so I thought; why not waste a few lessons and write a fanfic about them? That's what I did, I planned it all out in my head and I'm writing it out over time. **

"Happy birthday Mitchie!" Mitchie blinked her eyes open to see her best friend Caitlyn standing over her. What Caitlyn was doing at her house at half seven in the morning was a mystery so she asked her as she sat up.

"Your Mum invited me over. She said I could stay for the day!" Mitchie laughed at her wide awake friend and then groaned.

"My Gran's here isn't she?"

"Yup, she's here." Mitchie loved her Gran and everything but she always insisted on buying her frilly, pink baby dresses for her birthday and if she was here Mitchie usually ended up wearing them. Mitchie hoped every year that maybe now her Gran had decided to buy her something that she would like. Mitchie was eighteen today and her wishes had never been answered yet.

At least Caitlyn was here. Caitlyn always got her great presents, she could count on Caitlyn.

"Come on sleepy head, everyone's waiting," Caitlyn told her. Mitchie grinned and followed her out of the room, only pausing to grab her dressing gown so that she didn't freeze.

When they arrived in the living room Mitchie realized that she was the only one not dressed. Her Mum, Connie, had invited virtually her whole family, literally.

The living room joined onto the kitchen and it was a good thing it did or they would never have all fitted.

Her Grandparents, all four of them, were sitting on the sofa. Her parents were standing by the coffee table which was piled high with an unbalanced load of presents. Every one of her aunts and uncles, all four of them and their spouses, was situated somewhere and the seven cousins that came with them were crowded in somewhere. Caitlyn and Mitchie's other friends Ella and Peggy squeezed into one of the corners and, somehow, her Mum had managed to arrange for a huge, helium-filled number 18 balloon to sit by the window.

"Happy birthday!" The twenty four people in the room chorused as she entered. Mitchie blushed; she was never one for big celebrations.

"Congratulations!" shouted Peggy and Ella. Mitchie laughed and sat down cross-legged on the floor as her little three year old cousin Hannah came running up.

"Presents!" she shouted, handing Mitchie a few little packages. Mitchie laughed as everyone 'awed' and took the biggest present from her cousin. Cameras flashed and she caught Caitlyn's eye as she pulled out a photo frame. Caitlyn winked and Mitchie gasped.

It wasn't a photo, it was a collage, a mix of photos from her whole life. She stared at it for a long time, noticing more pictures every second. Several of them were ones that Caitlyn, Peggy and Ella had promised to delete, embarrassing photos of her pulling faces and falling over, which she did a lot. There were photos from the day she was born, pictures of her with her family at Connie's fortieth birthday and all of her cousins crowding around her as she handed out chocolate. Mitchie blinked back a few tears and smiled at her family.

"Thank you!" She told them, unable to stop the one tear that escaped. There was a collective 'aww' again as she wiped it away. Connie reached down and took the frame from her as she was handed more presents.

It took almost three hours but she finally got through the largest hoard of presents she had ever seen. The room was littered with wrapping paper and the piles of cards had all tipped over. Mitchie looked over the presents scattered around. She had received everything possible: Clothes, food, money, jewellery, vouchers, books, stationary, bags, hair brushes, calendars, photos, shoes and a pure silver necklace that read her name in a swirling text.

Mitchie looked around at her family and thanked them all for the thousandth time.

"There isn't anything else is there?" She asked apprehensively. A few of them chuckled and she took that as a 'No' but Caitlyn ran forward.

"There's one more thing," she told Mitchie, holding out an envelope. She had received so many gifts that she had barely noticed Caitlyn hadn't given her one. "This is from Pegs, Ells and me." Caitlyn handed her the envelope and Mitch tore it open smiling. Whatever was inside she knew she was going to love it.

Mitchie opened the beautiful card and a flimsy piece of paper fell out onto her lap. She picked it up and read it. Her eyes widened and she read it again.

"Oh my God!" She screamed, leaping to her feet. She threw herself at her friends and screamed again. "Connect 3 concert tickets! You guys are the best!" They hugged her back, laughing, and Mitchie could almost feel everybody smiling as they watched.

This was the best present ever! Connect 3 were her favourite band. She knew all of the words to all of their songs off by heart, she owned every CD and every poster of theirs and she had been a fan since before they made it onto the charts. The first time Ella played Mitch one of their songs she became addicted. Yet she had never been to one of their concerts, not in the four years she had been obsessed with them. She couldn't afford it.

But now she had her very own concert tickets! They were playing here, in San Francisco, tonight and she was going to see them. She re-read the ticket. They were front row seats. She would be within touching distance of Connect 3 and her three best friends would be with me. They must have been planning this for months.

Mitchie couldn't stop grinning all day, the smile never once deflated. Her three friends helped her choose an outfit, a mix of older and brand new clothes, and she loved it. She was wearing a black skirt and a fitted black top with a white cardigan. Her heels were only two inches because she fell over enough in flats. She picked out a few coloured necklaces and her outfit was complete.

Usually she thought that girls who dressed up for concerts were just sluts but she couldn't help it. It wasn't just her first Connect 3 concert, it was her first concert. She was going to be as close as it was possible to be to Shane Grey without getting arrested.

To be honest, Shane was the main reason she listened to their music. she loved their sound, the songs were really catchy, but Shane was just so hot! He always wore tight clothes which emphasized his muscles and he never looked anything but perfect. Mitchie, like every teenage girl in the world, had a celebrity crush on Shane Grey. She only knew of two exceptions to this rule: Caitlyn and Ella. Caitlyn was obsessed with Shane's band mate Nate and Ella was equally addicted to Jason. It didn't bother Mitchie, less competition. Then there was Peggy who thought they were all ugly and just liked their songs.

Mitchie's family stayed all day and they thanked the good weather and ate their lunch outside. Her Mum had baked a delicious, three tier chocolate cake and decorated it with thick white icing. She was almost overcome with emotion when she realized how much time and effort she had put into making it and keeping it hidden.

After lunch she was wound up with baby videos and her face burned red every few seconds as her ten year old self danced around and asked embarrassing questions. Caitlyn, Peggy and Ella just laughed every time she turned a shade darker and controlled her instinct which was telling her to flick off the TV now, before it got any worse.

At half three her family started to leave for the long drives back to their houses. She thanked them for coming and said goodbye to the children who didn't want to leave. Soon it was only her parents and her friends left.

"We only have three and a half hours!" Caitlyn announced.

"But the concert doesn't start until nine!" Ella said.

"Yeah, we have to be there at eight to queue, which means leaving here at seven." Mitchie rolled her eyes.

"Lets go get ready then." Peggy said. They had all brought their outfits with them, being the organized girls they were and knowing Mitchie would want them to stay.

They were up in Mitchie's room, just starting on their hair and makeup, when the house shook. Not much, just enough for the glass on Mitchie's desk to shiver a few inches to the left. Peggy was standing her the window and gasped.

"Was that an earthquake? The cars in the road all just shook!" she frowned.

"Yeah, let's just hope they don't get any worse!" Mitchie's friends all agreed with her, nodding, as her Mum ran inside.

"Girls are you okay?" They all nodded. "Did you feel that quake?" More nods. "Okay, listen to me. If you feel any more tremors at that concert I want you to make sure you get out of the way of anything dangerous. If anything else happens before you leave she want you to take precautions, have your phones on you."

"Okay Mum, we'll be careful." Connie smiled and left. "Wow, over obsessive much!" Caitlyn exclaimed. "It was just one tremor, probably only three on the Richter scale or something!"

"But Mum's always over react," Peggy pointed out.

"My Mum over reacted when I ate a bag of peanuts..." They all stared incredulously ay Ella. She was allergic to peanuts and they all knew it.

"Ella, you shouldn't eat it if you're allergic to it," Peggy said patiently, picking up a mascara. "Now keep still while I put this on!"

xOx

Mitchie grinned at the camera Caitlyn was holding in front of them and the flash went off. Connie laughed.

"Have fun girls! Call me when it's finished!"

"Bye Mum! Love you!" Mitchie called. Caitlyn was driving them to the concert. Mitchie was the youngest one of them and also the only one without her own car, although she had a license. Caitlyn had offered to drive them all to and from the concert as she was the only one confident driving in the dark.

They all piled into the car and as soon as they were out of hearing range of Connie they turned on the Connect 3 CD Mitchie had taken with her and Caitlyn turned it up to full volume. The four girls spent the entire journey raving and screaming along to the songs. Caitlyn only turned off the music when they arrived at the car park. This might be a Connect 3 concert but they didn't want to look like total lunatics.

The girls found the queuing area their tickets stated they had to wait at and joined the back of the shortest line. Some of the girls at the front looked like they'd been there about three days.

The next hour dragged by. Mitchie didn't know how she got through it, all she could do was talk and listen to music as they waited impatiently for the gates to open. When the security staff finally started moving around inside, the noise doubled and people began to push and shove to get to the front. Mitchie found herself wondering why it mattered when you got in; if you were in the line you had a ticket, who cared? Then again, she was desperately trying to get to the gate herself so she couldn't really talk.

They finally got inside and passed security, virtually sprinting to the standing area. Mitchie knew the girls must have paid an absolute fortune for this spot, it was literally the very front. There were three standing sections; the largest and farthest away one that probably would be full of people lounging on picnic blankets, the middle one that cost slightly more but had the best view of the catwalk and then the front one which was between the stage and the square catwalk. There were security guards standing under the arches that were built into the catwalk to stop rabid fans mobbing the boys.

Mitchie glanced at her watch, half an hour until show time.

xOx

"Fifteen minutes left!" Shouted the stage manager as she poked her head into Connect 3's dressing room.

"'Kay," Shane and his brothers chorused. The woman rolled her eyes and left. Nate turned off the TV and Shane groaned.

"Nate, man she said fifteen minutes not fifteen seconds." He complained. Nate ignored him.

"You always take at least ten minutes to sort out your hair," he reminded his older brother. Shane couldn't argue with that so he stood up and went to the dressing table to re-straighten his hair again. It really did take him ten minutes to get ready every time, even though his hair was already deadly straight.

Shane didn't get why they had to be in the wings fifteen minutes before they went on. It only took them two minutes to grab microphones and slip in their ear pieces but they always had to be there fifteen minutes early.

Shane's hair spray had disappeared in the mini earthquake earlier that day. It had rolled off the shelf and nobody could find it so he was now stuck with using a cheap one that didn't hold his hair at all. The earthquake had shocked them, nobody was expecting it. Shane was grateful it hadn't been too bad.

Half an hour later Shane was standing in the wings reattaching his earpiece. He had taken it out while they stood around waiting because it annoyed him wearing it for no reason. Now it was time to go on.

The boys liked to wind up the fans just a little bit so Jason picked up his guitar and strummed a few chords before they could be seen. The stadium immediately went crazy, screaming and shouting. Shane's brothers grinned at him and he turned on his Mic.

"Hello San Francisco!" He said. The screams doubled in volume and he heard a chant pick up around the stadium.

"Shane! Shane! Shane! Shane!" shouted his fans. He grinned at Nate and Jason and they stepped onto stage to stupendous applause. A few girls in the front reached up towards them and Shane bent down, holding out his hand. The girls all lunged for it but he only noticed one girl, the first one who grabbed his wrist.

As she touched him, static electricity shocked through his body and his head whipped up. Shane made eye contact with a girl who looked like she had just felt the same thing he had. He only saw her for a second but he could have told you anything about her.

She had dark brown hair that framed her face and her eyes were a deep chocolate brown that he could have melted into. She was dressed up but she didn't look like the usual girls who wore tight clothes and mini dresses like they though the boys would actually date them. There was something about her, something different and not just about the way she looked but about the way Shane felt looking at her.

After a second of eye contact he pulled back and became conscious of a piece of paper somebody had scrunched into his fingers. One of the girls had scratched his wrist with her fake nails and he hadn't noticed as I looked at the brunette. She was one of the most beautiful girls Shane had ever seen.

"Good evening San Francisco!" He shouted, running backwards to join Nate and Jason in the centre of the stage. "How are we this evening?" He opened up the piece of paper discreetly and was surprised that it wasn't just another mobile number. He read it quickly.

_Happy 18th Birthday Mitchie Torres! _

"Do we have a Mitchie Torres here?" Nate asked, reading it over his brothers' shoulder. Shane's eyes flickered to the girl at that second. He could just make her out at the very front of the crowds, just before they all faded into a black shadow.

He saw the girl turn bright red and glare at one of the girls he guessed was with her. The girl just laughed and pointed at her. Was the brunette Mitchie Torres?

"Mitchie Torres?" Nate repeated. Three of the girls at the front pointed to the brunette and shouted 'Here!' The boys couldn't hear them but they could see them.

"Happy 18th Birthday Mitchie!" Shane said, throwing her a smile. She blushed but didn't look away.

"Okay to start off tonight, we're going to do a little number called Play My Music!" Shane announced to general enthusiasm. "Does that-?" He never finished his sentence because at that point there was a deafening rumble. His earpiece went haywire and gave a loud pitched squeal; he pulled it out at the same time as Nate and Jason. Then the speakers started squealing and the world began to shake.

Shane couldn't stand up straight; he was thrown around from side to side, stumbling back and forth. People screamed, in terror now not excitement, as there were load groaning noises.

Across the middle of the crowds people fell over as a crack about a foot wide opened up. The fans attempted to steer clear of it and the falling concrete as the stadium trembled. Shane snapped his eyes back to Mitchie and her friends and saw their terrified faces.

The stadium was crumbling. The concrete barriers fell forwards and cracked into pieces, the walls split and people fell and stumbled everywhere he looked. Ripples waved across the grass, just a few centimetres high but scary all the same and the metal bar supporting the lights above the boy's heads came crashing down. Shane stumbled out of the way and narrowly avoided the debris that was raining down on the fans as he wobbled on one foot.

Mitchie screamed, grabbing Caitlyn's arm in shock. Her eyes went wide as the second earthquake of the day shook her. She stumbled and knocked her head on the security barrier which put about a three inch gap between her and the stage. Peggy and Ella had disappeared into the surging crowds.

Mitchie held onto the barrier for dear life with one hand, grabbing Caitlyn's arm firmly in her other hand. The ground shivered and even in her short heels Mitchie was finding it difficult to stand up straight. Nobody was watching the boys on stage any longer; they were all preoccupied with dodging the objects that were flying around and trying to not loose their friends.

There was a loud groan and a chunk of concrete fell down from above Mitchie and Caitlyn's heads. The screamed even louder and ducked down as it dropped.

Suddenly the shaking stopped and the world stood still again.

The screaming subsided and Shane slowly turned around to see how much damage had been done.

**I hope you're interested… I'm going to continue even if you're not. To everybody that favourites or adds alerts: could you just spend three seconds longer to type a review? **

**Tell me what you thought, chapter 2 is already finished and I'll post it soon sometime.**

**~Spwarkle **


	2. Chapter 2

**I got a really positive reaction to the first chapter. 7 reviews for one chapter. I uploaded another oneshot this morning and **_**Xthereal-meX **_**told me I should update this one. I did, because I am that awesome and I had almost finished it anyway.**

It took a moment for Shane's eyes to adjust to the scene of devastation in front of him. There were huge chunks of concrete missing at various points throughout the stadium and it was mostly dark. The power supply to almost all of the lights had been cut off so everything he could see was illuminated by the battery powered lights that activated in emergencies or phone screens.

The noise had dropped to complete silence after the quake but as he looked around it grew again, louder and louder. People called to their friends, cried in shock and ran madly around. Shane looked behind him and saw Nate and Jason stepping back onto stage. At some point they had taken shelter backstage and Shane didn't blame them.

It couldn't have lasted for more than twenty seconds but Shane had never seen such devastation.

Automatically, or so it seemed, Shane looked down to where he had last seen Mitchie. There was a growing crowd around the front of the stage and it took him a second to realize what had happened.

A part of the concrete roof had fallen down and was lying almost flat on the ground. In the small gap between the concrete and the floor Shane could see two pairs of legs.

Startled, he leapt down from the stage. The concrete had jammed on the security barrier and whichever girls were underneath were lucky not to be dead.

Nobody screamed or fainted as he vaulted the barrier and pushed through the crowd. They were all too shocked and scared to be star struck. But three security guards followed him regardless.

As he approached the concrete, one of the legs began to twitch. It was just a small jerk every few seconds but it made him speed up. There was no way that he was having two fans survive an earthquake and then get crushed afterwards. Shane directed the burly security men to move the concrete ore get the girls out and the strong men tried.

They situated themselves around the concrete and heaved, pulling it up by just a few inches. Everybody in what was left of the stadium seemed to be watching them; this was by far the most serious incident of the night.

Security managed to lift the concrete a foot or so up and then a few teenage boys appeared from the crowd, running over to help. To Shane they looked like the sort of boys that would be on a football team and their muscles certainly helped because minutes later the concrete slab flipped over and landed on an empty spot of ground.

"Mitchie!" Yelled one of the girls in the crowd.

"Caitlyn!" shouted another. The two girls pushed their way through and hurried over to the unmoving bodies. Shane moved at the all too familiar name and saw the two girls.

One of them was Mitchie, lying perfectly still on the ground. Her face was pale and there was blood trickling down her left arm. Her hair was knotted and tangled, lying around her face and Shan couldn't see any sign to show she was alive. He hurried over and placed his fingers on her neck, searching desperately for a pulse as his brothers dropped off of the stage to see what was going on.

The girl lying next to Mitchie was breathing heavily. Her chest was moving up and down rapidly and Shane was convinced she was fine. She seemed to just be unconscious.

Shane finally found a light fluttering under Mitchie's kin and breathed a sigh of relief. But it was so faint and so slow he began to panic again.  
"Does anybody know CPR?" he asked the gathering crowd. Nate and Jason pushed through and Nate gave him an odd look.

"Shane, you did a three month first aid course, remember?"

"Oh yeah." Shane had never forgotten, he just didn't want to be tempted. Mitchie was the most beautiful girls he had ever seen and CPR involved putting his lips to hers… he would just have to ignore it. She could quite possibly die if he didn't do this.

Before he leant over, he saw the startled look that Nate was giving the Caitlyn girl lying on the floor. He noticed how his brother walked over and spoke to the two friends who were crying as Mitchie and Caitlyn lay unconscious and then saw how Nate looked almost tenderly at Caitlyn.

Deciding that now wasn't the best time to think about Nate and his love life, he pressed his hands over the spot where Mitchie's heart was and pushed hard.

"One, Two, Three, Four, Five." He muttered to himself and then moved towards her mouth, hesitating only slightly before pressing his lips to hers and blowing air into her lungs. He felt her chest rise up underneath him and pulled away, watching for a second as she began to breathe steadily.

He suddenly heard the distant wails of an ambulance. The sound relieved him and he looked up, noticing the cameras and phones pointing directly at him and Mitchie. No doubt this would be all over the papers tomorrow '_Shane Gray saves mystery girls life'. J_ust what he needed.

Not wanting to risk her slipping away again, Shane continued with the CPR as the noise grew. A group of paramedics finally pushed through the crowd and took over, providing Mitchie with an oxygen mask and sliding her onto a stretcher. They rolled her into the ambulance and Shane didn't hesitate in following her in. It wasn't something he had to think about, it was just automatic.

The back of the ambulance was crowded. Caitlyn and Mitchie were in there, still unconscious, along with their two friends. Nate had followed Caitlyn in and Jason, not wanting to be left behind, had joined his brothers. Two of the paramedics were sitting in the front and the third was crammed in the back with the seven others.

"Who gave this girl CPR?" the paramedic asked, checking Mitchie's pulse.

"Me…" Shane said nervously. Had he done something wrong?

"Well done. I can tell you that without your quick thinking, this girl would be dead about now." The two friends gasped. "Who are these two girls?"

"Mitchie Torres and Caitlyn Gellar." Said the shorter of the two panicked friends. The paramedic wrote something down on a clipboard.

"What are your names?" The two girls introduced themselves as Peggy and Ella, friends of Mitchie and Caitlyn. The paramedic looked at the three boys for a second and then wrote down their names without even bothering to ask.

"Will they be okay?" Nate asked, staring at Caitlyn. Shane might have laughed at his brother's expression but the situation was too serious.

"They should both be fine. Caitlyn seems to be almost normal; she could wake up at any second. Mitchie is a bit worse for wear but with a bit of sleep and some painkillers she should be fine." Everybody breathed a sigh of relief; the two girls would be fine.

The next ten minutes of the journey were almost silent. The only people who spoke were Peggy and Ella who called Mitchie and Caitlyn's parents to inform them of what had happened. The four adults were meeting them at the hospital.

They were just pulling into the hospital when Nate spoke up.

"Did anybody else just see Caitlyn move?" All heads snapped to the sleeping girl and they all watched as her hand twitched. The paramedic leaned over her.

"Caitlyn? Caitlyn can you hear me?" She asked in a clear voice. Caitlyn didn't respond so the woman took her hand. "Caitlyn, if you can hear me, squeeze my hand." Everybody watched with bated breath and quite clearly saw Caitlyn's muscles tense for half a second. Everybody broke into smiles as the ambulance stopped.

"Caity are you okay?" Ella asked. Caitlyn gave a low groan and everybody was relieved. The back doors of the ambulance swung open.

"I need somebody to take Caitlyn's hand and keep squeezing it." The paramedic said, handing a few sheets of paper to the men outside the doors. "Squeeze it every few seconds until she opens her eyes."

"I'll do it!" Nate said quickly. Only Ella and Jason appeared shocked.

"Nate, man, you don't even know her. Are you just being totally nice?" Jason asked.

"Oh, maybe it's love at first sight!" Ella said excitedly. "Like in Cinderella and Snow White and Sleeping beauty and-"

"Shut up Ells." Peggy said, steering her friend outside. The two beds were wheeled off and Shane and Nate followed anxiously, the others slightly more slowly behind them. Ella was still babbling about true loves.

"I saw two birds that were in love once." Jason said loudly. Many eyes turned their way but thankfully none of the teenage girls present screamed.

"Oh, tell me about it!" Ella said.

"Well the first one, the girl, picked up a worm and then the second one, a boy, flew down and took the other end and they both pulled it until it split in half and then they flew off together!" Shane shared a look with Nate as the two beds were wheeled into separate rooms. Nate stayed with Caitlyn, who was now moving her head slightly, and Shane followed Mitchie.

Shane sat patiently as he watched Mitchie hooked up to several different machines. The nurses worked quickly and efficiently, making sure they were done when the doctor strode in.

"I take it you are the boy who saved Miss Torres' life?" He spoke to Shane, who nodded. "Well done, I don't know many teenage boys who would have reacted as well in those circumstances. You might just have saved an awful lot of pain and loss to her family."

"It was no problem," Shane said smoothly. "I couldn't just let her die, I had to try something."

"Well, there is nothing much we can do for Miss Torres until she wakes up. She is hooked up to painkillers, which should ease the pain but we don't know how effective they are until she is able to tell us. You may stay in here with her but don't hesitate to press the call button if she shows any signs of improvement or if you need anything."

"Thank you." Shane said, glancing back at the unmoving figure on the bed. The doctor left the room to go into Caitlyn and Shane sat on the uncomfortable plastic chair thinking.

What was it about Mitchie Torres that mad her so special? Why had he found it so hard to look away from her? Why had he rushed to save her life? What was different about her? For starters, he had never seen anybody so beautiful. Her hair was glossy, even now it was so tempting to run his fingers through it. Her skin was lightly tanned but also pale from her recent experience. She wasn't a traditional beauty but Shane was entranced. He wanted to feel her soft lips against his own again, only this time he wanted her to be aware of it. He wanted Mitchie Torres to know how obsessed he was.

Shane didn't understand his obsession. She was just a fan, just one of the millions of girls who attended his concerts and screamed his name. What made her stand out from the ten thousand girls tonight? He didn't know. A part of him was thankful for the earthquake; he would never have got a chance to be that close to her if the concert hadn't been interrupted. He momentarily felt guilty for running away from the concert but then he remembered that there was no way he could have finished it with the city in the state it was. He hadn't paid any attention as they drove through- what did the rest of San Francisco look like? Had everywhere suffered similar damage or had the stadium been the worst?

Shane had been sitting on the same chair for about ten minutes when he heard the door open. He looked up to see Peggy coming in, leading a crying woman and a distressed man. Shane guessed these were Mitchie's parents.

"Mitchie! My little baby!" The woman sobbed, running over to take her daughter's hand. Her husband followed and Shane could see the way his eyes glistened as he saw the eighteen year old girl hooked up to all of the equipment

"Mrs. Torres, Mitchie will be fine." The doctor assured her, walking back in. "She might have died if it were not for this young man here. Shane saved her life with CPR before the paramedics arrived." Mitchie's parents turned to look at Shane.

"Aren't you Shane Gray?" The woman asked.

"Yes, I am."  
"I'm Connie Torres, Mitchie's Mum. Thank you so much. We will never be able to thank you enough for what you have done."

"Really, Mrs Torres, it was nothing. What was I supposed to do, just let her die?"

"It doesn't matter, you saved her life. And call me Connie, Mrs Torres makes me sound so old."

"Connie it is then. I'll leave you alone now, give you some time with your daughter." Shane stood up to leave but paused in the doorway. "Can you send somebody to fine me if she wakes up?"

"Of course we can Shane." Shane smiled and then walked out, closely followed by Peggy.

"If you're there when she wakes up it will make her birthday so much better." Peggy told him. Shane grinned.

"Is she a fan?"

"Yeah, she's probably your biggest fan- and I'm not just saying that. Seriously, she's been listening to Connect 3's music since before you made it onto the charts, she never misses a live chat, she always watches if you're on TV and she owns every Connect 3 album ever. She even has an awful recording of the performance you did at Camp Rock the first year you got signed. You're all she ever talks about." Shane raised his eyebrows.

"She likes us that much?"

"Yeah, she used to have all of your posters on her wall but they made her seem really childish so she took them down." Shane was quite shocked. Not many people had listened to their music before it made it onto the charts, only a few people had heard of them when their label managed to skip them from number seventy two to number one in just a few days. The idea that Mitchie had liked them all along was something he hadn't even considered.

Peggy left to locate Ella and Shane sat on one of the chairs in the hallway. A few moments later Nate came out of Caitlyn's room, smiling softly.

"Is she awake?" Shane asked him. Nate nodded.

"She woke up but she was in pain so the doctor gave her some drugs to make her sleep again while the pain is still there. What about Mitchie?" He dropped onto another seat.

"Her parents arrived just now; I gave them some time alone with her. She's still completely out of it. She's not moving but the doctor told her parents that if I hadn't thought fast she would have died so now they feel like they're in my debt." Nate laughed softly and looked thoughtful.

"Do you think Caitlyn is cute?" Shane just raised an eyebrow. Nate looked embarrassed but continued anyway. "I mean, I think she looks beautiful and she seems different. When she woke up and saw that it was me squeezing her hand she didn't freak out or anything. I think she was in too much pain to really care but she didn't even look surprised. It's odd, you know. A cute fan that doesn't freak out when she gets to touch my hand."

"Yeah… What do you think Mitchie will do when she finds out that I saved her life?"

"Scream? Shout? Run? Tell the world?" Shane stared into the distance, deep in thought when he heard somebody calling his name.

"Shane, come in. Mitchie's waking up!"

**Like I said, thank you so much for the 7 reviews in less than 24 hours! Yay!**

**I'm not too sure when I'll update this next, maybe tomorrow or in a few days. Tell me what you think with your fantabulous reviews!**

**~Spwarkle**


	3. Chapter 3

**Hey, I'm updating this faster than anything else at the moment so be happy! For those of you who don't want to wait... tough luck. Go read some of my other stuff in the meantime, or other people's, or do anything really because I have a busy life… some of the time… and although I update this as often as possible it's not so easy to do it every day. If you want to know why I'm so busy at the moment go and read the author note on chapter 13 of MRR because I'm not typing it up again. ; )**

Mitchie could only feel one thing: pain. Her whole world was a blur of red pain as she lay, immobile for an immeasurable amount of time. All she knew was the uncomfortable pain, all she wanted to do was end it, yet she was unable to move, unable to scream out to the world to end her pain. She couldn't remember anything. What had happened? Where was she? Why did everything hurt so much? All she knew was pain and aching as she lay, just a ball of stinging limbs.

In an attempt to understand, she tried to locate her eyes in the darkness, tried to end the black and see the outside world, but she couldn't tell the difference between her eyes and her toes. It panicked her slightly, why couldn't she find they strength to peel open her eyelids? It didn't require any effort; she did it thousands of times each day, every time she blinked in fact.

After what could have been minutes, hours, days or weeks she finally became aware of something other than the pain. It wasn't much, but she could finally reach through the pain to tell which parts of her boy were hurting. Mostly it was her head, throbbing and pounding constantly, but she also knew that almost everywhere else hurt. Her left arm felt like it was being squashed under an elephant, her right leg felt like it was being snapped over and over again, but at least she knew which body part it was.

Sometime after this she became aware of noises. Distant beeping blurred words, hurried sentences. There were footsteps and she felt something jab into her arm. It was sharp, like a needle but she didn't care. She was already in too much pain to notice so she didn't react. Or at least she thought that she didn't, but when she attempted to move she found that she couldn't. Her body was out of her control, lying still on whatever surface she was on.

Mitchie tried to figure out what had happened. What on earth could have put her in so much pain, what could have caused this much confusion? She tried desperately to remember but couldn't piece together the memories. There were loud sounds, bright lights, embarrassment, screaming, more screaming and fear, almost like the whole world was shaking. Then there was blackness before this almost unbearable pain kicked in.

Focusing on the clearest memory she had, Mitchie recalled that it was her birthday, her eighteenth birthday. She could remember a lot of people in a familiar room and many presents. The present that stood out the clearest was a few slips of paper and the next memory she had was of thousands of people in a large room. What was it? A protest? A party?

Wanting answers, still not understanding what was going on, Mitchie tried desperately to move but found herself unable to control her body. Focusing entirely on the fingers of her left hand she willed herself to move, willed each tiny muscle in her fingers to contract, focused every inch of her brain power on the one little, seemingly insignificant movement. And it worked, her finger twitched. Immediately she heard somebody shouting, a familiar voice saying her name, yet she didn't think they were talking to her.

As if it was the key, she suddenly found herself in control of her body again. Not that the pain wasn't still there, because it was, but she could move again. Her hands flexed, her ankles moved and, very slowly, she cranked her eyelids open.

The bright white light was so different from the darkness that it startled her. It was bright white, blindingly so. Her eyes sprung closed again but she forced them to crack open by just the tiniest amount and blinked rapidly to adapt to the change in light. It took a few minutes but she was finally able to distinguish shapes.

The beeping continued by her ear and she noticed that the bed she was lying on was high up above a white tiled floor. The bedding was white, the bed was white, the walls were white… she was in a hospital.

More memories began to trickle back; Peggy, Ella, Caitlyn, a long car journey, the excited feeling and the teasing that went on between the friends.

Her eyes scanned the room for some sign of how she had got here, wondering how she had managed to end up in hospital after whatever she had been doing. She noticed her Mum standing a few feet away with tearstained cheeks, her hair matted and her hands trembling. Then there was her Dad looking panicked and stressed, bags under his eyes.

But the only person Mitchie really focused on was the teenage boy standing by the door, looking uncomfortable. His eyes were wide and his hands were shoved into his jean pockets as his shoulders hunched ever so slightly. The clothes he was wearing were incredibly tight and he was staring directly at her. Mitchie couldn't tear her eyes away from him and found that the loner she stared the more she remembered.

It was her eighteenth birthday and her friends had managed to get her front row tickets to the Connect 3 concert. They had been there; up on stage and when she had touched Shane's hand she had felt something, like an electric shock that had frozen her to the spot for a few seconds. And then Caitlyn had given him a piece of paper and he had announced her birthday to the whole stadium, causing Mitchie to turn bright red and her three friends to laugh uncontrollably. She could have sworn he was staring at her when he had announced the song but before the music could start there had been an earthquake, a seriously violent shake.

The last thing Mitchie remembered was a large chunk or concrete falling rapidly towards her and Caitlyn. Or at least, it was the last thing she could remember at first, but as she maintained eye contact she felt other, more distant memories returning. Somebody should her name and something soft pressing against her lips, something pressing hard on her chest.

Was she hallucinating? There was no way that Shane Gray was in her hospital room, what reason could he possibly find to be in a hospital with a fan? She was just a girl who had been standing in the wrong place at the wrong time and got hurt, she must have hit her head and now she was seeing visions.

But he looked so real! If she didn't know that something was wrong with her, being in a hospital gave it away, she might truly have believed that Shane Gray was in the same room as her, like he was at the hospital to check up on all of the fans that had been injured. But Shane wouldn't do that. It was the only thing that every magazine agreed on; Shane Gray didn't care about anybody but himself. He might be funny and kind but if it came to choosing between a child in Africa going without food for a week and him living without his straightener for a day, he would always choose himself.

Forcing herself to tear her eyes away from the imaginary boy in the corner she turned to her parents.

"W...what hap-pened?" she croaked, her throat aching from a lack of moisture.

"Mitchie!" Cried her Mum, hurrying forwards to engulf her in a tight hug. Her father followed suit but Mitchie couldn't help but glance at the figure across the room. Shane hadn't moved, was her imagination incapable of making him any more realistic?

When her Mother crushed her in the tight hug she couldn't help but cry out in pain as her injured body was squashed.

"Oh Mitchie I'm so sorry!" Connie said, pulling back. "It must hurt. The doctors said to call once you woke up and they would put you on some more suitable medication." Mitchie managed to give a weak nod, feeling incredibly tired despite the fact she had just been in a deep sleep for several hours.

"What happened?" she repeated.

"Don't ask us," Her Dad, Steve, said in a rough voice, like he was concealing emotion. "Ask Shane." He gestured towards the boy by the door. She frowned. Shane Gray was here? He wasn't a figment of her imagination? She was in the same room as _Shane Gray; _he was here at the hospital to see her? Steve carried on talking. "Without Shane you wouldn't be here, he saved your life."

"What?" She gasped. Shane flicked his eyes up to meet hers again and smiled softly.

"I didn't do much," he explained. "You were just lying there and you didn't have a pulse so I gave your CPR." Mitchie tensed up. Didn't that involve mouth to mouth contact? Blowing air into the victim and pressing your lips together. She had kissed Shane Gray! Well not kissed exactly but their lips had touched and she had to admit she would rather tell people that Shane Gray had saved her life than tell people she had kissed him once.

"You saved me?" She breathed.

"That's what everybody keeps telling me." Mitchie laughed softly but the movement caused every muscle in her body to move and every movement hurt her more so she stopped the light chuckles.

"Thank you," her eyelids began to droop. "For saving me. Without you I wouldn't be here."

"Go to sleep Mitchie." Connie told her daughter, noticing how exhausted she seemed. Mitchie didn't bother to reply she simply allowed herself to drift off. The last thing she remembered was the voice of Shane Gray whispering;

"Happy Birthday Mitchie!"

**Sorry if I seem really snappy at the moment but I'm having a tough few weeks. I just know that I owe it to you lot to update all of these.**

**Tell me what you thought, sorry it was so short,**

**~Spwarkle**


	4. Chapter 4

**Okay, two things. First off, I'm sitting here with the TV on in the background and Camp Rock 2 came on as I type this I'm watching the magical shoe change. Anyone else noticed how Mitchie gets out of her Mum's van with six inch yellow heels on and when she starts to sing Brand New Day she had orangey-yellow flats on? I find that hilarious.**

**Secondly, this is for SQUARYBLONDESMEOW who has been begging me to update. **

**And a third thing: Enjoy!**

"Come on Mitch!" Mitchie bit her lip and watched her feet as they hung just inches above the ground. It shouldn't seem like such a chore, it was only walking after all. But she hadn't walked in almost a month. It just felt odd. She hadn't harmed her legs much at all. She had multiple scratches cuts all over her body still, bruises decorating her face and a broken left wrist but she hadn't lost the ability to walk.

The last month had been strange. Caitlyn had been released from her room next door two weeks ago but had been visiting every day. Peggy and Ella had been visiting as much as possible but due to the fact they were unharmed they had been required to go to school every day. Mitchie and Caitlyn were both due to return in a weeks time but until Mitchie could walk properly the hospital were unable to discharge her.

The group by the door was an odd mix. At the front were her parents, Ella and Peggy, smiling encouragingly. Behind them were international pop sensations Shane and Nate Grey, the latter of who had his arm wrapped around Caitlyn's waist. Every time the pair were questioned about it they claimed that Nate was just helping her to stand but Shane had discussed it with Mitchie and they had decided that the pair were far to cosy to just be friends for long.

Shane had yet to leave the hospital. He was Mitchie's most regular guest; he was always in her room, talking to her, laughing with her, helping her to reach things that were across the room. Shane and Mitchie had become good friends over the last month. Mitchie didn't really understand why he was still here. So what if Connect 3's tour was over? Shouldn't he be at home making the most of he spare time. From what he had told her so far the band didn't get much down time, what between tours, recording songs, and charity events.

But here he was, sitting with a girl he had known for less than a month in a hospital in the middle of San Francisco, waiting on her hand and foot because she couldn't walk. Mitchie decided that she at least owed him that and closed her eyes before pressing her feet to the floor.

The tiles were cold and hard but that helped. To her numb legs a soft carpet that she would sink into would not have helped at all but with something hard and resistive under her feet her muscles seemed to tense ever so slightly, just enough for her to remember how to walk and to give her legs the strength to hold her body weight.

She could feel that all seven of her audience members were holding their breath as she managed to straighten her legs and held onto the bed for dear life.

"Go on!" Urged Shane. Mitchie took a deep breath and peeled her fingers off of the mattress one by one. When she was finally standing everybody burst into applause and she couldn't help but smile.

"Try and walk," Connie urged. Mitchie looked slightly panicked but attempted it anyway, lifting one foot off of the floor.

Almost immediately she wobbled backwards onto the bed. She felt tears of defeat in her eyes, she couldn't even achieve one step. Then, embarrassed by the fact she was crying over such a trivial thing she ducked her head, ignoring all of the shouts telling her not to worry. Mitchie only looked up when she felt fingers wrap around each of her hands.

"Come on Mitch, you can do it." She looked up and found Shane's face just inches away from hers.

"I can't Shane! I don't know how!" She felt Shane tug at her hands and sighed, shuffling forwards so that the balls of her feet were resting on the tiles again. Shane pulled harder and she rocked forwards so that she was standing. This time, with Shane supporting half of her weight, she managed to walk across the room and hug her parents. Everyone cheered and then she turned to Shane to hold his hands for the way back only to discover he was standing a good six steps away from her.

"You can do it, I know you can." Shane said. Mitchie shook her head. She could stand easily enough but she was sure that she wasn't up to walking unsupported. Shane however had other ideas.

It seemed that nobody was going to help her. They were all watching her as she stood there in her hospital gown and glared at Shane before picking up her left foot and moving it tenderly a few inches forwards, slamming it to the ground before she could loose her balance.

"Come on Mitchie!" Ella yelled far too loudly for the hospital environment. Peggy shushed her as everybody watched Mitchie with bated breath.

Mitchie managed to take a second step without stumbling and she could feel the courage building up inside of her. Why had she made such a fuss? This was only walking, after all. She had been doing it every day for sixteen years, why panic now? So there and then, Mitchie began not to walk but to run towards Shane, throwing herself into his arms and smiling into his shoulder as he spun her around.

"I knew you could do it." He breathed into her ear. Mitchie felt her body give an involuntary shudder as his breath tickled her neck but pretended she hadn't noticed and laughed softly.

"Thank you." She said sincerely as he placed her back on the ground. She was immediately pulled into a hug by Caitlyn, Peggy and Ella and the four girls stood together for several minutes. Mitchie was glad to be going back to school. She was sick and tired of sitting constantly in the same hospital room, surrounded by white on white and the same, sweet nurses. She was excited about returning to school even though she knew it wouldn't be quite the same.

For starters she had a broken wrist. With her left wrist in plaster she was unlikely to be forced to play sports or take part in anything physical for several weeks. Then there was the fact that she would be almost five weeks behind everybody else in her school work which would mean extra lessons, more homework and paying more attention for a while until she caught up.

The biggest problem was neither of these things. The biggest problem was that the whole school, and the rest of the world, knew that she was now friends with Shane Grey. The morning after the earthquake, amongst the pictures of devastation and stories of loss, people the world over were opening magazines to pictures of Shane Grey saving a girls life by kissing her. Once the press had discovered that they had traced the ambulance to the hospital and now Mitchie was aware of the constant audience outside, waiting to see Shane appear with the girl they were calling his secret girlfriend. Anyone who knew Mitchie knew how ridiculous that story was. She was good friends with Shane but she never leapt into a relationship that fast and the only time they had ever 'kissed' was when Shane was saving her life.

The press were refusing to relent. They were waiting around for Shane to emerge and at first Mitchie had thought that he was only staying in the hospital to keep out of the public eye but after she had witnessed Nate coming and going several times daily she realised that Shane was staying for her, to make sure that the fan who had been unfortunate to get crushed at one of his concerts was okay. Now, that fan was more than a fan, she was one of his best friends.

Mitchie was surprised that he was still here. The fact that he was still able to find something new to talk about after a month of conversation was a novelty, most people she spoke to decided that they knew everything about her after a five minute chat and then left with a permanent image of her. Shane however, had taken time to find out everything about her. He knew that she always made her cakes with cocoa and vanilla in them to add flavour; he knew that she never walked under ladders or travelled in green cars; he knew exactly how to make her laugh and just how to cheer her up when she began to worry about her injuries. In many ways, Shane knew more about her than she knew about herself.

And it was equally true the other way around. Mitchie knew the address of the house that Shane had grown up in, she knew that he never took his phone on stage with him like his brothers because he was afraid that he would loose it, she had discovered that his favourite movie was Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat because he had watched it so much as a child. She also knew that he hated his record label because almost all of the music they had released was overproduced, edited and not their style.

The two had become almost inseparable and by going back to school Mitchie knew she would be surrounded by rumours, stories and just plain lies about what had gone on when the two were alone in the hospital room. Although most people would believe her when she said that they were just friends who had met by chance and nothing more, there was always those few who wouldn't believe the truth and would attempt to annoy her into admitting to them what they believed to be the truth.

Mitchie knew exactly what they would do, they would follow her around, wind her up and tease her until she snapped, but she didn't care. She was just so excited to finally be leaving the hospital. Over the last week the clean room had really seemed to shrink around her but now she could finally prove that she could cope by herself.

So that was how, twenty four hours later, Mitchie found herself finally leaving the room. Shane came behind her with the bag that was full of the few personal items she had received over the last few weeks. It wasn't much; several 'Get Well Soon' cards, a couple of books, a pair of fluffy socks and a few DVD's. Words couldn't describe her relief at finally escaping the hospital room. As soon as she had recovered the ability to walk she had left the room but now she would, hopefully, never have to return to it fro any reason. Mitchie and all of her belongings were out and she had never been more excited to go back to her normal life.

Not even the thought of a hundred paparazzi could dampen her mood. The reality however was an entirely different matter. As soon as she took a glance through a second floor window and saw the cameras prepared for anybody that could be linked to a celebrity, even Peggy and Ella, to leave the hospital she stopped walking.

"Shane there're hundreds of them…" She whispered. Shane placed his spare hand on her right shoulder and steered her away from the widow and into the waiting elevator.

"Ignore them. Forget they're there. When we get out there and they yell at you just ignore everything. Even when they make ridiculous assumptions, which they will, just keep walking. Nate and Jason have the limo parked as close as they could get it, we're taking you home in it."

"Way to be inconspicuous…" Mitchie muttered, giving a fake laugh. She threw Shane a nervous glance but hurriedly turned back around when she bashed her shins against a low coffee table that was sat in the waiting room. "Ouch." Shane chuckled and stopped her before she rounded the corner.

"Ready?"

"Nope."

"Good, then lets go." Shane ignored the terrified expression Mitchie was wearing and pushed her gently forwards so that she stumbled into sight of the photographers crowded around the glass door. Mitchie immediately froze at the sight of them and Shane grabbed her hand to pull her forwards.

Shane could hear Mitchie's breath speeding up as he pulled her towards the door but he didn't stop or talk to her as he knew it wouldn't help. He simply thanked the nurse who stopped to open the door for them and pushed Mitchie out into the bright light that was caused by the flashing lights coming from all directions.

"Shane over here!"

"What happened in the hospital Mitchie?"

"Are the rumours true?"

"Mitchie, how did it feel to have Shane Grey stay with you through the month in hospital?"

"Are you going to release a statement about what happened?"

"Shane!"

"Mitchie!"

Shane glared at the photographer who was attempting to reach out and grab the teenagers, pushing Mitchie's bewildered form through the crowds and towards the limo that was sat just a hundred feet away from the door. Jason flung open the door for them as they arrived and Mitchie stumbled in, her eyes wide and her fragile body shaking. Shane leapt straight in behind her and slammed the door shut. The tinted windows blocked some of the light but the flashes were still evident.

"Stupid paparazzi." Shane muttered as he stuck up his finger in the general direction of the window, confident that they could not see him. Mitchie laughed gently and then looked around the luxury car for the first time. It was definitely preferable over any other car she had been in with its leather sets, soft carpet, built in television, drinks machine and space. It might be thin on the outside but here on the inside it was expertly designed to make the most use of the space. Mitchie was sitting on a seat next to Caitlyn and opposite Shane and Jason. Nate, as always, had his arm wrapped around Caitlyn's waist.

"You alright Mitchie?" Jason said on seeing her dazed expression. He had been visiting her regularly over the last month but he hadn't spent all of his time with her like Shane or tagged along with Caitlyn like Nate He just dropped in to chat whenever he gave Peggy and Ella a lift or brought things in for Shane.

"Yeah, just… I don't really know…" Shane laughed as there was a low purring sound and the car began to move.

"When are you starting school?" Nate asked the girls.

"Jesus, you make it sound like we've never been to school before." Caitlyn teased him. Nate tickled her side and she giggled in a way that Mitchie had never heard her giggle before. Shane kicked Mitchie's ankle and the two of them shared a glance before stifling their laughter.

"I thought they were just friends." Everyone looked at Jason, Caitlyn and Nate included.

"We are just friends." They stated in unison.

"But you keep on flirting and Nate always has his arm around Caitlyn's waist and you're sat really close together. You look like a couple!" Caitlyn flushed bright red and moved ever so slightly away from Nate so that their legs were no longer touching. Mitchie and Shane just laughed. Jason had just stated what all of them were thinking in a way that nobody else could have done.

"In answer to your question, Nate, we _go back to _school on Monday." Mitchie explained.

"And today's Friday so in three days." Caitlyn added, yawning and then shuffling closer to Nate again to rest her head on his shoulder. Shane flashed Mitchie a look and whipped out his phone, snapping a picture of the two before either of them could move. The flash gave him away.

"Shane!" Caitlyn yelled, diving at him. "Delete it!" Shane shook his head, throwing the phone to Mitchie. Caitlyn then turned on her friend and sighed.

"I can't beat you up… for starters you're my best friend and then there's the fact that you have a broken wrist." Mitchie laughed victoriously and passed the phone back to Shane. His fingers brushed hers as he received it and they both pretended not to feel the intense heat.

"Don't beat up Shane either." Mitchie warned her friend. Caitlyn sighed and sat back down, this time on Nate's lap. "God, you are so… so… coupley!"

"Coupley?" Shane questioned. "Couldn't you have called them annoying or flirtatious or told them to get a room. No, you decided to make up a word…" Mitchie reached over and smacked his arm playfully before moving to sit next to him.

"I refuse to sit by the lovebirds."

"There is no such thing as lovebirds." Jason stated. "Why do people always say that there are?" Everyone ignored him as Mitchie rested her head on Shane's shoulder and closed her eyes.

"How can I be tired when I haven't done anything for the last month?" She whispered into his shoulder, oblivious to the way that Shane was holding himself back from kissing her right there and then. Instead, he settled with wrapping his arm around her shoulders and leaning down to whisper in her ear,

"Sleep Mitchie." And Mitchie did just that, drifting off against his shoulder.

**Hehe. It took me practically twenty four hours to write that… well it didn't it actually took me about two hours but I sat down to write it and got side tracked by the film, then I was about to start again when my friend called and we went into town.**

**Never leave a cup of tea alone with a friend with Haribos. Haribo tea is DISGUSTING, just thought you might like to know.**

**Tell me what ya think' **

**~Spwarkle**


	5. Chapter 5

**It's been almost a month… my excuse? I don't have one… Just the normal, homework, most important choices of my life… you know… the norm.**

Mitchie stared at the TV as the camera footage that everyone but her was sick of replayed over and over. Everybody else had stopped watching the local news over the last month, having memorized every twitch in the hundreds of videos shown. There were hundreds of videos being submitted every day, hundreds of clips that people had managed to record, yet the news insisted on sticking with the same ones they had used from day one.

It didn't help that the news centre had been half destroyed in the earthquake. Mitchie had not realised the state of the damage until she arrived home and climbed out of the limo to see her street. She lived on the outskirts of San Francisco but there were still several broken windows, a few fallen conservatories and houses that were filled with broken china and glass. Mitchie's own room had survived quite well. There was nothing but a glass of water to fall and smash, most of her valuable objects were wrapped up in the attic.

She was heading back to school for the first time today and she knew it was going to be different to what she remembered. Cruel as it was, the school seemed to have retained no damage after the quake at all. The town centre was already being rebuilt and repaired, the houses were being fixed by their residents and the stadium, the epicentre of the earthquake, was in ruin. Mitchie had definitely come off the worst of all of the fans in the stadium but the building itself was destroyed beyond repair. There were already plans to knock it down and rebuild it instead of attempting to fill in the huge holes and patch up the crumbled concrete.

"Mitch!" She looked up to see Peggy, Ella and Caitlyn all standing in the doorway, grinning at her. She hadn't been aware of anybody entering the house but they were here anyway.

"Come on," Caitlyn dived for her good hand and dragged her up. "I cannot wait to finally get back to school."

"Pegs, can you video this?" Mitchie called, glancing over to see that Ella had already whipped out her phone. "I never thought I would see the day Caitlyn Gellar was excited for school."

"Yes! Yes!" Caitlyn grabbed Mitchie's coat for her and threw it at her best friend. "I cannot wait to finally get back to normal. Kind of."

"Yeah, normal except we now know Connect 3 and everybody knows it."

Caitlyn shrugged. "It's still better than sitting in that hospital all day every day." Mitchie nodded her agreement and carefully slipped on the coat Caitlyn had thrown her.

"Let's go!" Ella called cheerily. The others laughed and the four girls tumbled out of the door and into the street. They paused when they noticed a sleek black limo at the end of Mitchie's front garden.

"No. Way." Mitchie groaned. "They promised that they wouldn't take us o school but they'd be waiting when we got back!" Caitlyn rolled her eyes and sprinted forwards, stopping when the door opened and a familiar curly haired boy climbed out.

"Nate!" Caitlyn ran towards him as if she was going to hug him but stopped short and slapped him instead.

"What was that for?" Nat asked sharply, rubbing his cheek.

"You promised us that you wouldn't take us to school. It will just get us even more attention, we don't want it! We just want to be ourselves again with the added bonus of some amazing friends. We don't want the entire neighbourhood watching us drive along in a limo; that will just make people stare! We told you to meet us at Mitchie's house after school so that we could hang out."

"I know but… Caity we have some bad news."

"What?" Shane and Jason climbed out of the car with serious expressions and Mitchie, Peggy and Ella hurried along to see what was happening.

"What's going on? Why are you here?"

Shane fixed Mitchie with sorrowful eyes before he spoke. "We have to go."

Both Mitchie and Caitlyn froze and their eyes widened in unison. "What?"

"Our manager has signed us up for a charity concert up in Canada on Wednesday. This time tomorrow we have to be there for sound check."

"Y-You're leaving?" Mitchie managed to stutter.

Shane nodded sadly. "We don't want to, we really don't. But it's a charity concert and it would look _really _bad if we didn't go. We should be back on Friday."

This time it was Caitlyn who spoke. "You should be back by the end of the week?" The boys just nodded and shrugged sadly.

"So we thought we would take you to school today and hopefully be back to pick you up on Friday evening."

"Yeah, okay then." The four girls trailed sadly into the limo. Even Ella and Peggy felt sad knowing that the boys wouldn't be around for the week. Mitchie and Caitlyn had rubbed some of their excitement around the boys off on their friends.

The drive to school passed in silence. Caitlyn had situated herself right next to Nate, her head was resting in the crook of his neck and her arms were around his waist. Mitchie was just watching Shane sadly as Peggy, Ella and Jason sat to one side, feeling like intruders. When they finally pulled to a stop Peggy and Ella hurriedly clambered out, calling a goodbye to the boys and sprinting into the school building.

"It's only a week," Shane comforted his friend. "We'll be back on Friday."

"Maybe you think so now." Mitchie sighed and stood up slowly. "That might be what you've been old but it you're going to this, how long until you have to go away again? For a whole week, cross continent maybe. I know it's your job but you're supposed to be on vacation!"

Shane reached out and pulled Mitchie into a firm hug. "I don't know what will happen Mitch but I do promise to keep in contact, whatever we're made to do over the next few months. You knew we'd have to leave eventually."

Mitchie nodded against his chest and then reached up to peck his cheek before leaving through the door, tripping on her way out.

Caitlyn giggled and nudged Nate as Shane reached up slowly to touch his cheek and stared after Mitchie with a dazed expression. Nate clapped his hands loudly and Shane jumped.

"You okay man?" Nate enquired.

"Yeah… I'm great…" Caitlyn giggled again and then leant over to peck Nate's cheek.

"I'll see you on Friday Nate!"

"Bye Caity!" She ducked out after her friends and Shane watched his brother carefully, hoping to see some sign that he was as dazzled by the kiss but Nate didn't respond in any way except to wipe his cheek once and remove the lip gloss.

"Let's go." Jason suggested. Shane reached over to slam the door shut. The engine started and the limo slowly pulled out of the packed car park and into the street.

Mitchie, Caitlyn, Peggy and Ella were already inside. Mitchie and Caitlyn were reorganising their lockers which, over the course of the past month, had filled with dust and seemed to contain twice as much rubbish as the last time they had been in.

"Wow, look at this!" Caitlyn exclaimed, holding up a crumpled piece of paper. "This is the essay I wrote right at the start of the year. Do you remember the one that I got in huge trouble for not handing in?" Her friends nodded, remembering it all too well. "This is it! I can so go and hand it in now, prove to the school that I _am _organised."

Mitchie chose not to respond to her friend and instead ducked her head into her locker, chuckling at the memories of hours of attempting to convince the staff that Caitlyn had most definitely completed the essay on The Dangers to Earth from Outer Space. They had honestly had no idea but Caitlyn was their friend and they always stuck up for her.

The warning bell rand and the noise in the corridor grew as people attempted to yell their conversations while they walked in opposite directions. Caitlyn and Mitchie bid goodbye to Peggy and Ella and headed to homeroom together.

"Here goes nothing," Mitchie muttered as she pushed open the door.

Just as they had expected, the room grew silent as they entered. The girls all turned to stare at them and the boys stopped talking as, for the first time, they recognised the two girls entering. A month ago Caitlyn and Mitchie were just nameless girls who sat in the back of the room but now they were familiar faces, local celebrities, and the boys actually cared.

At the front of the room, Mrs Appleyard glanced up form her laptop to search from the cause of the sudden incline in noise and noticed Caitlyn and Mitchie standing awkwardly in the doorway.

"Okay then guys," Mrs Appleyard clapped her hands together, ready to protect her favourite students from the stares. "Let's come up with a few base rules here. Number one, no treating Mitchie and Caitlyn any differently unless the actually ask you to. Number two, no staring. Number three, no provoking, teasing, nagging or whispering. Happy? Good." Mitchie and Caitlyn grinned their thanks and slipped into their usual seats at the back of the room, avoiding the occasional glances from the girls further forwards.

The day passed in a similar fashion. Mitchie and Caitlyn could barely move without somebody else fixing their eyes on the friends and beginning to whisper. But that was it. For the majority of the time it was just whispering and staring, which both girls had been preparing themselves for constantly over the last several weeks.

The only exception to this fact was Leah Osborne, captain of the school dance team. Caitlyn and Mitchie were standing by their lockers when she approached.

"Catherine, Michelle, it's ice to see you again."

"It's Caitlyn and Mitchie."

"That's what I said!" Leah gave a shout of high pitched, obviously fake laughter. "I was wondering if you wanted to come and sit with us at lunch. You know, sit with the popular girls now that you're dating celebrities instead of those losers you used to be forced to hang out with."

Caitlyn looked the girl up and down, taking in her fake blonde hair, her fake tan and her fake breasts before she spoke.

"Thanks Leah but no thanks. I know it's wrong to judge by appearance but I have a feeling your friendship would be about as realistic as your appearance. And I bet if I told you that we weren't even dating the boys you would lose interest."

Leah shrugged and turned away with a flick of her hair. Mitchie was tempted to pull the extensions out but didn't really want a detention on her first day.

"Your loss." Leah called over her shoulder. Caitlyn and Mitchie both rolled their eyes before slamming their lockers shut. Caitlyn began to walk when she heard Mitchie whisper her name.

"Mitch?"

"Help…" Mitchie said quietly. Caitlyn turned around to see Mitchie's long sleeved top had caught in her locker door. "Don't you dare laugh Caitlyn Gellar."

"I'm sorry Mitch but…" Caitlyn broke out into laughter as she unlocked Mitchie's locker and helped her friend out. "I am never going to let you forget that."

Mitchie blushed furiously as the two friends set off towards the cafeteria and were met halfway by Peggy and Ella. Caitlyn immediately told them what had happened and Mitchie had to spend her hour long lunch break listening to her friends reminiscing about her most embarrassing moments.

"Guys can you please stop embarrassing me now?" She begged as they headed back to their lockers. Her friends finally stopped their talking and she sighed in relief before promptly tripping over her own feet. Caitlyn, Peggy and Ella began to snigger as Mitchie gently banged her head on her cast.

"You seriously need to work on your coordination Mitch!" Caitlyn managed to say. "You can't go more than three seconds without tripping over something or giving yourself a paper cut on your homework." Mitchie frowned and crossed her arms.

"You guys are so mean to me!" She complained.

"But you love us anyway!" Chorused the three girls together, making her laugh.

"You know me too well."

**If I told you I had this finished yesterday but was a little bit preoccupied playing singstar and Just Dance with my friends to upload it would you be annoyed? I'm sorry!**

**~Spwarkle**


	6. Chapter 6

"Mitchie? Mitch are you there?" Caitlyn snapped her fingers in front of Mitchie's glazed eyes and, very slowly, Mitchie looked up from her phone.

"What's wrong Mitch?" Ten minutes ago Mitchie had been leaping around in excitement - it was finally Friday, the boys were coming back – but now she was almost in tears. Caitlyn reached out slowly to take the phone and read through the message.

_Can you or Cait ring one of us ASAP? Bad news…_

There was no name at the bottom, it wasn't needed. Even Caitlyn knew who the message was from.

"What's up, any ideas?" Mitchie simply shook her head and exercised her newly freed wrist. Caitlyn frowned slightly and opened her own phone to call Nate as Mitchie brushed more dead skin from her arm.

"Lush Mitch," Caitlyn commented sarcastically as the phone began to ring. Nate answered immediately. "Caity? Finally, Shane was just about to ring Mitchie."

"Seriously? She only got the text five minutes ago."

"Shane's been trying to work up the courage to text her for five and a half hours." Nate explained bluntly.  
"Oh." Caitlyn took hold of Mitchie's arm and dragged her into a quiet, disused classroom before turning on the speaker phone. "What's up?" There was a shuffling and the girls could hear all three boys muttering before Shane cleared his throat.

"We're not coming back."

Silence.

"Girls? Are you still there?"

Mitchie stared at the phone in confusion. "What do you mean you're not coming back?"

"Our manager has just organised a European tour. He wants us to leave right away, it's not optional." Mitchie's eyes widened and Caitlyn pulled her friend into a comforting hug, still holding the phone between them.

"How long for?"

"A month, it's pretty quick by tour standards."

"You're going to Europe? For a _month_?" Mitchie whispered. Caitlyn heard Shane sigh in regret.

"I'm sorry Mitch, I was really looking forwards to coming back. But we can't get out of this, we're already signed to it. I'm really sorry." Mitchie allowed a single tear to fall. "It is only a month; we'll be back before you know it!"

"No you won't." Mitchie said softly. "You said that last time. I told you this would happen, that it would all get bigger and bigger. You're just going for a month, then they'll squeeze in an extra week of shows, then it will just be a few weeks in Australia to expand your fan base. It never ends!"

"Mitch… don't be like that!"

Mitchie's phone began to ring and she opened it to answer Shane's call. Caitlyn watched her leave the room with a worried expression, listening to Shane's voice fade in the distance.

"Well that wasn't awkward…" Nate muttered. Caitlyn laughed and turned down the volume again.

"Nate, I have a question for you."  
"What is it?" Nate smiled to himself, remembering some of the other crazy questions Caitlyn had asked him recently.

"Which cheese do you prefer on pizza?"

"Cheddar, definitely."

"What? Cheddar? That's disgusting!" The eighteen year old shuddered at the thought and began to walk in the same direction as Mitchie.

"Well then, Miss Gellar, what would you have?"

"That's easy, Monterey Jack."

"Montary what?"

"Monterey Jack," Caitlyn said slowly and clearly, pronouncing ever syllable precisely. "It's amazing!" On the other end of the line, Nate just chuckled.

_xOx_

Mitchie was sitting outside, staring absently at the dance team, when Caitlyn found her. She had obviously been crying but had just as obviously tried to hide it. Her arms were wrapped around her knees, holding them to her chest.

"How could they do that Cait?" She asked quietly. "They promised that they would be back!"

"I know Mitch, but sometimes you have to break promises." Caitlyn wrapped an arm around her friend's shoulders. "Look at it this way; by making you wait longer, Shane is making millions of other girls happy and when he gets back you'll be so pleased to see each other that you'll probably kiss straight away!" Mitchie blushed the colour of strawberries.

"I don't like him in that way, Cait!"

"Sure you don't…" Caitlyn winked at her.

"Okay then. If I admit to liking Shane then you have to admit that you're wildly in love with Nate."

"Mitchie, you just _did _admit that you like Shane and I don't love Nate so, sorted." Caitlyn leapt to her feet victoriously and then held out her hand toward her best friend. "Come on, let's go get lunch."

"Yeah…" Mitchie allowed herself to be lead away, her eyes glued onto the dancing girls until the last possible second.

This action didn't go unnoticed by Caitlyn, who waited until they were sitting inside with their lunches before broaching the subject.

"What was with you staring at the dance team?"

"Nothing! It's just that, you know…"

"Hate to break it to you Mitchie but I don't know. If I knew I wouldn't be asking you!"

"I guess so… It's just that they're all so glamorous and popular, they all look to happy all of the time. Had you ever thought of trying out? Just to see what it was like?"

Caitlyn's jaw dropped. "Seriously Mitchie? You want to become a clone of LeahOsborne? Of all the people you could choose to idolise, you go for _Leah_?"

"I'm not idolising her!" Mitchie protested, her eyes wide with indignation. "I just said I thought it might be cool!" Caitlyn just rolled her eyes and turned back to her food.

_xOx_

By the time the bell rang at the end of the day, Mitchie was used to the idea that Shane wasn't going to pick her up, but that didn't mean it didn't hurt. She knew that sometimes he didn't have a choice but after waiting all week to see him she had been looking forward to talking to him in person instead of over the phone. Now her illusions were shattered and she was back to texting and staring at pictures online.

Caitlyn had noticed a distinguished change in her friend's behaviour since the phone call. Mitchie had stopped bouncing around, she had stopped giggling at everything and, most importantly, she had lost the bright smile. Caitlyn knew it was the disappointment she was seeing but it still worried her.

"I don't know what to think Nate," She said as she lay sprawled across her bed. "She's been through so much in the last month, I'm not sure whether to leave her to get over it alone or go round there and yell at her until her head has straightened out again."

"Don't yell," Nate advised. "Because then she'll tell Shane and Shane will start teasing us about dating to get back at you."

"We're not dating!" Caitlyn practically yelled, sitting up straight.

"I know that! I know that and you know that but everyone else seems determined not to settle for that!" In her head Caitlyn could see Nate sitting in a hotel room somewhere with a perfectly calm face and his soft lips pulled up into one of his rare smiles.

"Sod everyone else, we're just friends, right?"

And even though, deep down, Caitlyn wanted him to deny it, she couldn't help but give a sigh of relief when he answered with a simple, "Of course."

"Well as long as we have that fact firmly established, I feel free to move on."

"Well unless you have a particular topic of discussion in mind I have a question for you?" Nate made it sound like a question.

"Fire away!" Caitlyn announced eagerly.

"Which do you find more annoying? Zebra or leopard print toilet seats?"

"Leopard of course! Zebra ones can blend in with a black and white bathroom, leopard print just stands out!"

"I'm glad that _somebody _understands me! Shane and Jason just think I'm crazy for even considering the idea."

"That's because you are Nate. But at least you weren't crazy enough to bring those fish print ones into it."

"Fish print? Oh, those! I remember when my parents had to buy one of those when I was little because it was the only one they could get at such short notice after I broke the original one. I found it fascinating!"

"Do I even want to know how you broke the toilet seat?" Caitlyn giggled slightly as images of a six year old Nate smashing a toilet seat came to mind.

"Whatever your thinking, stop it Caity. No, I broke it by trying to see if I could break it off. Shane dared me to and I was only four so I did. I pulled it off and it split down the middle."

"Seriously? I always thought Mitchie was the destructive one!" Caitlyn could just imagine a curly hair little boy standing in his parents bathroom, yanking at the seat of the toilet. "Nate, that is one of the weirdest mental images I have ever been given!"

"Caity!" There were a few odd noises from the other end of the line. "Ow! Jason, get off! Hang on a sec Caity."

Caitlyn laughed and then waited patiently as Nate covered the microphone of his phone and spoke to Jason. She could hear Nate turning Jason's idea down and a part of her wanted to know what it was. Just seconds later Nate came back.

"Cait, I don't want to get on your nerves but could you please give me Ella's number? Jason wants to ask her on a date."

"Jason and Ella! That would work so well! Look, I have to go to dinner but I'll text you the number later, okay?"

"Sure, see you Caity."

"Bye Nate!"

**Okay, so it's **_**really **_**short but I was really into it and I wanted to post something else for you guys! It's mostly Naitlyn and I'm sorry but they're going ot be friends for a long while yet. I promise they get together eventually. Eventually, eventually that is…**

**Thank you to everyone who has been reading any oneshots or anything lately, I've been getting loads of really positive feedback. Thank You guys so much!**

**Yes, Charlotte, I still hate you. Lol, jokes! **

**And if you've got a second, go and read all of Jaylorlover's stuff. She is a legendary person!**

**Review? Please? I have loads of alerts and favs, but most of you aren't reviewing… A free one of the cookies I'm addicted to making for everyone who reviews!**

**~Spwarkle **

**:p**


	7. Chapter 7

**Aren't you proud? Two updates in just over an hour!**

"Something's not right with her. She's all distant and she's been hanging around by the dance team loads lately."

"I know. It's almost like she's following them!"

"Guys shut up! She's coming!"

Peggy and Ella looked up from their whispered conversation in the direction Caitlyn was discreetly indicating and saw the figure of their friend headed toward them.

"You are right though," Caitlyn observed under her breath. "Something's not right." The three girls all looked at Mitchie suspiciously as she sat down, searching for any physical sign of change. Except for the bags under her eyes that they were sure came from late nights texting Shane, Mitchie showed no outward sign of being any different to two weeks ago.

But the signs in her behaviour were a completely different matter. Four days after Shane had left, Mitchie had suddenly announced that she was going to watch the dance team rehearse and had jogged off to do so. Since then she had spent more and more time sitting on the field watching the dancers and less and less time with her friends. She was more selective about her food choices, picking salad and water instead of chips and juice every lunchtime.

As she sat at the table, Mitchie could feel the gazes on her. She looked herself up and down, patted her hair and then frowned.

"What's up? Why are you all staring at me?" Peggy and Ella looked away uncomfortably but Caitlyn just narrowed her eyes.

"Mitchie, are you okay? You seem different lately, like weird different. You've been hanging around the dance team a lot, you've been eating differently and you've been a lot quieter."

"Geez, what are you, my mother? If I want to change who I am then I can do it without your permission."

"I never said you couldn't! We're just worried Mitchie! Ever since the guys left you've seemed different."

"I've not changed! I'm still me!"

"Mitchie, what is it? I've known you your whole life and you've _never _been like this before! Why are you acting like it now? Are you just missing Shane?"

"Leave me alone," Mitchie snapped. "I don't have to answer to you!"

"What's gotten into you? Have you been taking lessons from Leah?"

Mitchie's jaw dropped. "You did not just say that!"

"I did Mitch. And I meant it. That's what you've been acting like lately!"

"Well maybe if you think I'm so much like her I should be hanging out with her and her cool friends not you three losers."

Caitlyn, Peggy and Ella all stared at her in disbelief. Their friend would never say something like that; she would never have even thought it. This wasn't Mitchie. Mitchie hadn't been around ever since Shane, Nate and Jason had left.

The new, cold hearted Mitchie Torres stood up and crossed the canteen with her tray. She stopped behind Leah Osborne and said something to the girl, who turned to smirk at Caitlyn, Peggy and Ella before nodding. Mitchie sat down in a spare seat, firmly turning her back away from her friends.

"I don't think that went very well." Ella said in a small voice. Peggy and Caitlyn exchanged hurt looks as Mitchie began to talk to the girls she was now sitting in, appearing completely comfortable with the girls she had always hated.

"She'll be back by the end of the day." Caitlyn failed to convince even herself. "I bet she can only take those girls for so long."

_xOx_

By ten the next morning, Caitlyn was beginning to run out of hope. Mitchie had only spoken to her once today, scornfully ordering Caitlyn to move out of the way of her locker. Caitlyn had obeyed and left as soon as possible, scared by the change.

Mitchie had changed overnight. The girl from before with her 'I don't care what you think' look had completely gone, replaced with yet another Leah clone. Mitchie was now striding around in a low cut, baby pink top and a short denim skirt, her hair curled in loose waves over her right shoulder and her eyes burrowed under makeup. The rumours were spreading that she had joined the dance team already and Ella had been forced to look at her for almost five minutes before she realised that this girl was one of her best friends.

It was entirely by chance that Caitlyn figured out what had caused this sudden change. Midway through the afternoon she was excused from French for the bathroom and when she arrived, found Mitchie also there, applying another layer of mascara.

"Hey Mitchie!" Caitlyn attempted. All she received in reply was a grunt.

When she was drying her hands, Caitlyn noticed Mitchie texting with a soft smile on her face. A smile that almost made her look like herself again. Caitlyn knew instinctively that Mitchie was texting Shane and began to put the puzzle pieces together. Mitchie had once joked about how joining the dance team would help with her coordination and she had also made it clear to most people that she worried about what Shane would think of her next to one of the more self confident girls. The pieces clicked together and Caitlyn gave a gasp, causing Mitchie to look up and then roll her eyes.

"I know why you're doing this." Caitlyn said sharply. Mitchie was looking at her phone again but Caitlyn could tell she was listening. "You want to impress Shane. You want to defeat your clumsiness and look more appealing to him because you're to stupid to see that he loves you. Or at least he did. He loved you because you were you, he loved you for not trying to be like all of those other girls. Did you ever think of that, Mitch? Did you ever think that maybe your chances were higher before you crossed over to the dark side?"

Mitchie stared at her with an emotionless face for a second before rolling her eyes and flipping her hair across one shoulder. "Only my friends can call me Mitch."

She left with room without another word, her hand on her hip and her expression fathomless. Caitlyn watched her go, partially disgusted that Mitchie would change so easily for nothing, and just stared at the black door until her phone beeped.

_How's life without your amazing friend? Mitchie told Shane that she was in the bathroom with you so I figured it was safe to text you. _

Caitlyn grinned as she read Nate's text, her worried about her best friend momentarily leaving her mind. A text from Nate always made her feel better, it worked every time. He always picked the best times to call in the evening, just when she was beginning to get bored of her homework, seconds before her parents could yell at her about the state of her room. Nate always knew the perfect time to ring for a conversation.

_xOx_

Shane could tell that something wasn't right with Mitchie from the way she had been texting him. For the first few days her texts had been cold and snappy which he had put down to her frustration at him leaving but now he wasn't so sure. Surely she wasn't still mad at him after two weeks, was she?

Her texts had changed, they seemed to hint at the clingy feeling he was so used to getting from past girlfriends. Sometimes they would be short and dismissive but he would continue to text her until he received a long, complex reply. The tone just seemed lightly off. It was like adding a single drop of black paint to a whole bucket of white and then mixing it in; the change was impossible to pinpoint but it was definitely there.

Shane tried to make as much time for Mitchie as he could around their busy schedule. He texted her on the bus, he waited up until the early hours of the morning to call her so that the timing was right for her. He made sure to send her pictures of almost every venue and he was always careful to add just one kiss at the end of every text; nothing that would stand out dramatically but hopefully something that would register with her subconsciousness.

Nate also kept him posted on Caitlyn's life and the boys used a mixture of information to be able to guess what each girl was doing at any time and whether or not it was safe to call. Caitlyn preferred to be called in the early evening and get out of her homework for a few hour whereas Mitchie liked to chat just before she went to bed, sometimes staying up until passed midnight just talking.

That was how Shane finally decided that something was dreadfully wrong. He rand Mitchie's house like always at what was four in the morning for him in Berlin and seven in the evening for Mitchie in San Francisco. Connie answered the phone and instead of calling Mitchie to talk to him apologised that Mitchie was out with her friends. Nate was winding up his conversation with Caitlyn at that very second so Shane knew that Mitchie wasn't with her best friend.

They always did everything together. Mitchie and Caitlyn were inseparable, Shane knew that. If Mitchie had gone out with somebody else then something must have happened.

"Shane, dude?"

"Ya huh?"

"Caitlyn wants to talk to you."

"Me?"

"Yeah, it's something about Mitchie."

Shane snatched the phone away and pressed it to his ear. "Caitlyn, what's wrong?"

"It's Mitchie," Caitlyn's worry was evident. "I think she might be in trouble and I can't do anything about it. I need your help Shane."

**Again, I know it's short, but I have literally just written it! I'll leave the choice up to you: do you want more frequent, shorter chapters or do you want longer, less frequent one?**

**Cupcakes to anybody who reviews, which you guys have been great at, so thank you! : )**

****Spwarkle****


	8. Chapter 8

**Once you're done reading this, review, please, and then find me on twitter. I'm all twittery this weekend!**

**I know I only updated this two days ago but I had so many reviews that I had to update again!**

Caitlyn paced her room, frustrated, as she waited for news. The last she had heard from any of the boys, Shane had been having a shouting match with his manager about coming back.

It was only lunch time of Mitchie's second rebellious day but Caitlyn had left when the lunch bell rang after hearing Mitchie talking to Leah. Mitchie was going to one of the parties tonight. The dance team went to parties almost every night and almost always came home after midnight completely drunk and with no recollection of what had just happened.

That wasn't Mitchie. No way was sweet, innocent Mitchie ready to go to one of these parties, having never drunk before, and let herself go. Caitlyn knew that she would regret it the morning after if it was allowed to happen but the only person who could help right now was somewhere on the road between Paris and Berlin.

Caitlyn's phone slipped from her sweaty hand when it began to ring and she swore, picking it up and answering to a private number.

"Hello?"

"Caitlyn? It's Shane. I'm on my way." He was panting, like he was running.

"You're coming?"

"Well you said yourself, Mitchie needs my help. They can do the show in Paris without me and my manager knows that, he's just stubborn."

A part of Caitlyn knew that the fans in Paris didn't deserve to only see a part of Connect 3 but the worry for Mitchie was too overwhelming for her to care. She listened to Shane's quick breathing for several minutes, waiting for him to speak when suddenly another call intercepted.

"Shane, I've got another call, give me a second." She switched to the second called, Nate. "Hey Nate! Make it quick, I've got your brother on the other line and I think he wants to ask about Mitchie when he finally slows down."

"It's nice to speak to you too Cait." Caitlyn smiled. "But anyway, can you lock our calls together so it's three way?"

"Can I do that?" Caitlyn pulled her phone away from her ear and pressed the options button. Sure enough, the option was there. She tapped it and could suddenly hear both Shane's laboured breathing and Nate's talking.

"Shane, where are you?" Nate asked immediately.

"You- how are you here? Did you add him to the conversation Caitlyn? Thanks, I was trying to avoid him!"

"You what?"  
"He ran off without making any arrangements," Nate explained. "How exactly do you plan to get from Paris to San Francisco, Shane?"

"The airport, if you must know. Cait, what time does the party start?"

"I don't know…" Caitlyn racked her brain for the small pieces of information she had picked up through her high school years. "They usually start about eight or nine and finish when everyone has been kicked out of the house the next morning."

"Right, it's seven at night here, if I catch the next flight out in fifteen minutes will I get there in time?"

"I don't know!" Caitlyn exclaimed. "I'm no good at times and even if you get to the airport in time, only half of the terminals are in use because of the stupid earthquake. Half of the city is still in pieces; it will take you hours to get through!"

"No it won't." Shane said confidently. "I'm Shane Grey, all I have to do is look around and people will be willing to let me through anywhere. If I can fly in on time then getting to the party will be no problem."

"Good luck with that," Caitlyn observed dryly. "Most of your fans will be in school, you do know that right?"

"At eight at night? I don't think so." Shane let out a small chuckle and Caitlyn groaned.

"I told you that I was no good with times!"

Nate cut in with a teasing tone. "Shane, you'd better be prepared to kiss Mitchie. From what Caitlyn has told me, it's about the only way you'll be able to bring her back to her senses."

"Nate, that's not even funny. Mitchie and I are best friends, nothing more."

"Well if you're Mitchie's best friend then I guess that makes Nate mine." Shane and Nate could hear Caitlyn's grin through the phone but it rapidly faded. "Seriously though, if you don't get here soon Mitchie might not be friends with any of us for much longer."

_xOx_

Mitchie chewed confidently on her gum as she stepped into the crowded room, strutting to join her friends without hesitation. She had spent four years of her life desperate to get into one of these parties but she wasn't going to ruin it now by squealing like an excited little girl.

Leah waved at her form the spot she had managed to squeeze into between two of the footballers. Mitchie could tell that the boys were staring at her bare legs but tried not to act self conscious. She was here because Shane hadn't cared enough to stay; she didn't see why she couldn't have some fun flirting with other boys.

"Hey Leah. Are you going to introduce me to your friends?"

"Sure. This is… actually, I can't remember their names. Boys, why don't you introduce yourselves?" Before any of her companions could speak, Leah had slipped off to join some of the other girls from the dance team.

"I'm Mike," The first guy, tall and blonde, introduced himself. Mitchie smiled at him as she popped the strawberry gum and then looked expectantly at the other boy.

"I'm Dean." The look he flashed her made her hand automatically reach back to pull down her skirt a few inches.

"It's nice to meet you two."

Mitchie sat on the bar stool that Mike was offering and flipped her hair over one shoulder, batting her eyelashes at the bartender as she ordered a drink. Everybody knew that, at parties like this, age wasn't important, so she wasn't afraid to ask for a beer.

From where she had slipped it into the tiny pocket at the top of her skirt, Mitchie's phone began to buzz. Expecting a call from her mother, she pulled it out only to scoff at the called id.

_Caitlyn_.

The very name reminded her of two weeks ago, when she had been hanging around with the girls she had known for years and the closest male friends she had ever made. If Shane hadn't decided to fly off to Europe, she would probably be sitting in her room with Caitlyn right now, throwing popcorn and laughing. But no, she was here, hanging out with the popular crowd at a party because Shane was far too busy singing songs to even call her.

He hadn't even bothered to call her for a decent conversation since he went away. He would call in the evening, chat for an hour or so and then find an excuse to leave: they had arrived at their destination, he wanted to grab an hour of sleep, somebody wanted him. The way he was treating her made Mitchie feel empty. It was a week ago that she had realised what her problem was.

She loved him. Mitchie Torres was in love with Shane Grey, her best friend, and he didn't care. He didn't care enough to come and visit for even a few hours before he jetted off half way around the world for a month. After a month of spending solid time together, Mitchie wasn't ready to let him go for such a long time so she had decided to try and lure him back.

It hadn't been all that hard to convince Leah to give her a makeover. After all, Mitchie was practically a celebrity now, Leah would do anything for the chance to be seen in public with her. She had only asked once before she had been whisked off to enrol for the dance team. In just the few days of solid rehearsal she had been given, Mitchie felt like somebody else. She had conquered a small portion of her clumsiness and felt more confident about herself than she had before.

"Mitchie, come over here!" She looked up at the sound of her name and then waltzed over to Leah and four other girls, the only members of the dance team who were not roaring drunk. "Mitchie," Leah greeted sharply. "Okay, now that we're all here we can get down to business. I've just been up and sorted the music; we're up next. We're going to do the dance we learnt yesterday, okay?" It was obviously a rhetorical question so nobody answered.

From the front of the room a male voice announced the team and Leah lead them out onto the dance floor mechanically. Mitchie's heart was thudding uncertainly. She wasn't a dancer, she never had been, and in these three inch heels she was almost guaranteed to trip and fall. She wasn't ready to perform the active dance in a mini skirt and tank top but she had no choice. If she didn't do it, the whole school would know by Monday morning and she would never be able to show her face again.

As the quick beat kicked in, Mitchie found her feet stumbling their way through the opening moves, glad to be hidden at the back. It was when the chorus played and she had to move around that she began to panic. Her brain rushed through the dance, always several steps ahead. What was next? Was it a flick or a kick, a walk or a run? Mitchie's mind worked constantly as she attempted to remember and perfect the moves she would never have dreamed of a week ago and stop her top slipping at the same time.

By the time the music faded, her face was glistening with a sheen of sweat and her hands were trembling. She had never spent such a strenuous three minutes doing anything in her entire life. Taking the hint from her dancing companions, she slipped back into the crowd and found her way back to the bar, back to the vacant seat by her first drink. She would have sworn that she saw Mike move his hand away form her drink as she approached but shook it off.

"You were good out there Mitchie." He said flirtatiously, shamelessly looking her up and down. Mitchie felt self conscious and discreetly pulled her skirt down and her top up. "Have a drink; you must be famished after all of that dancing."

He handed her the drink she had paid for earlier and she raised it to her lips just in time to feel it smacked away and hear it smash on the floor.

"Don't drink it." Growled a familiar voice. "Buddy here just dropped something in it." Mitchie gasped and took a good look at the shadowy figure standing in front of her. Had any other teenage boy in a black hood told her what to do, she would have told him a few of Leah's favourite words but not this one. This boy sounded so remarkably like Shane that all she could do was stare.

There was no way he could be here. He was in Europe; he should be in Paris right now, performing for a crowd of screaming adolescent girls. What would he be doing here, in San Francisco, with her? How was he here?

Still confused, Mitchie didn't hear the words that Shane spoke to Mike, all she was aware of was the punch that her friend threw in the direction of the boy and the resounding crunch that followed. The few people who hadn't started staring at the smashed glass now turned to watch as Mike lifted his head, blood dripping slowly into his hand.

"Shane!" Mitchie exclaimed, her eyes wide. Shane turned to her with narrowed eyes and then took her wrist, dragging the protesting girl back out of the front door and alone the street, not speaking until they had reached a taxi parked in the street.

"What the _hell_, Mitchie?" He growled, shaking down his hood and placing a hand on either side of her, forcing her to stay put against the car. "What was that place? What were you _doing _there?"

"Why do you care?"

"Why do I care? Why do I care?" Shane ran a frustrated hand through his hair. "Mitchie, you're my friend, my _best _friend. I know you. I know that you don't go to places like that, or dress like that. I know that you don't ditch Caitlyn, _ever_, and you don't ignore her so much that she worries and calls me. Me, Mitchie. She called me. She didn't even send me a message through Nate, she actually spoke to me. Caitlyn doesn't even know me!" He groaned. "What's wrong Mitch?"

Shaking a few droplets of water from her eyes, Mitchie glared at Shane's eyebrows. "You want to know what's wrong? Let me give you hint, shall I? It has something to do with the fact that my best friend flew off to Canada for a week without any warning and then, on the day I was expecting him back, he jetted off to Europe for a month. How would that make you feel, if you were me? It made me feel unwanted, disposable, like you didn't care! Do you care, Shane? Because sometimes it sure doesn't seem like it."

"Of course I care, Mitchie! I care enough to fly back here at no notice without any notice, just to look after you. I care enough to miss my first Paris show in three years! Or course I care!"

"You really flew back here just for me?" Mitchie's gaze met his own and he nodded.

"I was worried, Mitch. I had to come and take care of you. You are my best friend, after all."

Mitchie blushed as a few tears leaked from her eye. "Do you think you could get me home so that I can change and call Caitlyn?"

"You can count on it Mitchie." He opened the door of the taxi grandly, as though it were the door to her very own palace. "You can count on me."

**Again, short, but it's longer than last time, I think. Please, please, please review! All 49 or you with alerts have definitely go accounts so I know you can. **_**Please**_**? **

**Then follow me on Twitter! **

****Spwarkle****


	9. Chapter 9

**9 reviews in less that 24 hours? Thank you guys soooo much! That's why I'm updating again! **

"You promise to come back?"

"Mitchie, I'll be back in two weeks, I promise you." Shane placed his hands on his friends shoulders and looked deep into her eyes. "Call me if you need me, okay? Anytime, just give me a ring and I'll answer. Even if I'm on stage."

Mitchie laughed softly. "I'm not that desperate. I just… I felt like everyone was leaving me. Caitlyn was practically dating Nate, you had flown off for five weeks after being with me for a month. I thought that by changing I might get your attention..."

"You don't need to change who you are to get my attention, Mitchie Torres. I love you just the way you are." Shane immediately cursed.

Mitchie's breath caught. "What did you just say?"

"That you don't need to change for me."

"No, after that."

"That I love you?" Shane racked his brain for a plausible excuse. "You're my best friend Mitchie, of course I love you. You're like a sister only I don't fight with you all of the time."

Mitchie chuckled and tried to ignore her deflated heart. "You've got to go Shane. You really have. You'll only just get back in time for the concert from this plane. If you miss another one your manager might just sue me."

Shane rolled his eyes and then pulled his friend into a tight hug, holding her tightly against his chest and breathing in the scent of her hair. He would never have admitted it, but he had missed this the past two weeks. Coming back to save Mitchie from herself was just an added bonus to the fact he got to hold her again.

"Bye Mitch. I'll see you in two weeks, I promise."

"I'll see you soon Shane,"

Mitchie continued to smile as he backed slowly into the crowd, only to reappear seconds later, sprinting toward her.

He wrapped her in another bone crushing hug. "Bye Mitch."

"Bye Shane. Now go!" Mitchie kissed his cheek and pushed him as hard she could into the seething stream of travellers, laughing as he continued to wave, his hand sticking out over the heads long after she could see his face.

As soon as she was sure that he had really gone, Mitchie backed away, still smiling. The last twenty four hours had been nothing but her and Shane, just sitting around and talking. Shane had stayed just that short amount of time to convince her that changing was not necessary, that he preferred her the way she was. And it had worked. Just a few precious hours with Shane and persuaded Mitchie back to herself, back to being who she wanted.

Her Mum was waiting outside the doors, the engine still running. Mitchie slid in next to her without a word and Connie, understanding, didn't speak until they were half way home.

"Are you okay now Mitchie?"

"I'm fine Mum, I always was. I guess I just wanted Shane to see me, to notice me and be persuaded to come back. I didn't stop to think that maybe he was doing as much as he could to keep in contact, trying as hard as possible and fitting me in as much as he could around his tour schedule."

"Have you spoken to Cait yet?" Connie asked, reaching out with one hand to ruffle her daughters' hair.

"Mum!" Mitchie protested, pulling away and smoothing down her locks. "And no, I haven't. I was wondering if you could drop me off at hers on the way home?"

"Of course I can honey. That way you can organise a day out with her tomorrow and catch up."

"Catch up? What is there to catch up on after three days."

"You and Shane, Caitlyn and Nate," Connie said knowingly. "I'm sure that the two of you can make conversation about the boys last for hours." She paused as she pulled onto a quieter side road. "And of course Christmas is in six weeks, in case you've forgotten."

"It is? Oh my God! It is! How did I forget Christmas?"

"Don't ask me honey, ask yourself. I blame Shane personally."

Mitchie poked her tongue out at her mother, catching sight of a familiar house before she could respond. She slipped out of her belt and dropped out onto the street before Connie could stop, earning and scolding yell from her mother. Mitchie ignored it and ran up the drive, knocking on the door with her fist.

"I'm coming, I'm coming! Geez, calm down." Mitchie laughed at the familiar voice and then smiled as she waited for Caitlyn to open the door.

"Hey Cait."

"Mitchie!" Caitlyn screamed, throwing her arms around Mitchie's neck. "What happened? All Nate knew was that Shane had found you and was flying home about now. Are you back to normal? Are you Mitchie again?"

"Yeah, I'm Mitchie again. Just a warning, Cait, but if you babble much more than you'll become a real girl, skirts and all."

"What? No!" Caitlyn pulled a face and dragged her friend inside, waving at Connie before she closed the door. "Now tell me what happened! Why did you go all stuck up on us?" Mitchie glanced down at her feet to hide her tinted cheeks. "Mitchie? Tell me!" When Mitchie made no movement, Caitlyn sighed. "Don't say I didn't warn you!"

She lunged, her hands headed straight for Mitchie's stomach. Mitchie immediately yelled out, curling over to protect herself and squealing with uncomfortable laughter.

"Okay, I give in!" She shouted, pulling away from Caitlyn. "I'll tell you, I'll tell you!" Caitlyn folded her arms expectantly.

"Well?"

"it was Shane. I missed Shane and I thought I could make myself more attractive to him if…"

"Shane?" Caitlyn gasped, her jaw dropping. "Of _course_! Why didn't I see it before? You like him, you really like him! Don't try and deny it, Mitchie Torres, you know it's true!"

"It is!" Mitchie admitted before pausing. "Do you think it's possible to fall in love with somebody after only knowing them as long as I've known Shane?"

"Love?"

"Yeah…"

"Oh my God! Mitchie's in love with Shane Grey!" Caitlyn grinned for her best friend, taking her hand and dragging her up the stairs. "Come on, you've got to tell me everything!"

"Cait, there's nothing to tell you! I love Shane but he told me like half an hour ago that he loved me _as a friend _and nothing else. You know everything that's gone on between us. There's nothing I've told him that I haven't told you!"

"I don't care! We're going over every little detail of it again so you can tell me how you know that you're in love!"

"You should know exactly how I feel," Mitchie smirked as Caitlyn dragged her along the landing. "You feel exactly the same way about Nate, after all."

"No I- what?" Caitlyn slammed her bedroom door shut and spun around. "What gives you that idea?"

"Cait, you know that it's true! You're always talking to him and on the rare occasions you're not texting him or chatting to him then you're talking a_bout _him. You might say there's nothing going on but there blatantly is!" Mitchie embellished her last word by dropping onto the chair by Caitlyn's desk.

"There so isn't! Just because you're eighteen doesn't mean you know me any better then you did a month and a half ago!"

"Maybe not," Mitchie began to spin. "But I can tell that you like him."

"As a friend, yes, but not as anything else."

Caitlyn's phone began to buzz in her pocket and she pulled it out excitedly. Mitchie watched with raised eyebrows, noticing how Caitlyn's expression fell and knowing immediately that it wasn't Nate on the other end of the line.

Caitlyn hit the speaker button so that Micthei could jon the conversation. "Hey Ella," she greeted. "You'll never guess who is sitting here with me!"

"Santa Clause?" Ella enthused.

"Um… no… Ella, we've told you before that… never mind. Anyway, it's Mitchie!"

"Mitchie? Oh I remember her! Didn't she leave us for Leah and all that lot?"

"Yeah, but she's back again now, Shane saved her!"

"Really? Yay! Hi Mitchie!"

"Hey Ells."

"Anyway, I just remember why I rang! You will never guess who called me!"

"Who?" Mitchie and Caitlyn chorused, prepared to listen to one of the stories which Ella talking to a dead, historical figure.

"Jason!"

"Who?"

"Jason! You know, Jason Grey? Nate and Shane's brother?"  
"Yeah, we know him…" Mitchie prompted, sharing a shocked look with Caitlyn.

"Well he asked me if I wanted to go to dinner this Friday! Or it might have been next Friday… but either way, I've got a date with Jason!" Ella's excitement was radiating down the phone.

"It will be next Friday Ella, the boys are in Italy this Friday."

"but we're so proud of you!" Mitchie interrupted Caitlyn's more serious comment. "Do you like him?"

"Yes! I mean… he seems pretty cool… he likes birds, just like I do, and we talk a lot. He doesn't laugh at me as much as everybody else!"

"We don't laugh at you that much, Ells."

"Well no, but Jason hasn't laughed at one of my comments once, he understands how serious I am!"

"Good for you, Ella. Good for you."

**Again, I know it's quite short but I had to update, you guys are so fantastic at reviewing now! Thank you, thank you, thank you! If you're reading MRR, TI or JGMT, I'm a bit sidetracked by this now so you might have to wait w while for an update… sorry!  
I'll update again soon, night!**

****Spwarkle** **


	10. Chapter 10

**I feel really bad; it's been almost a week since I updated and I have no valid excuse =S**

**If you're reading any of my other stories, I'm sorry I'm taking so long to update them. I'm just addicted to this one.**

The grin on Mitchie's face was wider than any Caitlyn had ever seen as the two friends entered the airport. Mitchie was almost running in her excitement and Caitlyn was following behind at a steadier pace, apologising to the many people that Mitchie was banging into and knocking over as she crossed the airport. Caitlyn was just as excited as Mitchie seemed to be but the difference was that Caitlyn could keep that excitement bottled up inside of her for much longer than her best friend.

"Mitchie slow down!" She shouted, stopping to apologise to a shocked tourist who had been knocked back into her suitcase. "I'm sorry; she's excited about meeting her boyfriend." Mitchie would have killed her for the name she gave to Shane but Caitlyn didn't really care.

"That's okay…" The woman muttered, turning away. Caitlyn sighed and then jogged through the trail of destruction caused by Mitchie's hyper mood.

She finally caught up with the girl in the almost empty room marked arrivals, a spacious tiled area complete with orange plastic chairs that were screwed into the floor.

"Why would anybody steal those chairs?" Mitchie's voice came from behind Caitlyn, startling her. "Seriously, nobody wants a chair that uncomfortable so why do they bother screwing them in?"

Caitlyn rolled her eyes and pointed silently to the floor across the room. A long, thin, winding crack had split the tiles down the middle, no doubt a cause of the earthquake. Mitchie's eyes widened but it was clear that she didn't understand.

"Mitchie, think about it, if you were sitting in here when the earthquake struck, you would dive under the chairs, right?" Mitchie nodded. "Would you want them sliding around, falling over and leaving you unprotected?"

"Oh, now I get it." Mitchie suddenly shrieked, pointing to one of the few working screens hanging above them. "Look, the boy's flight landed fifteen minutes ago!" The two girls exchanged confused glances and turned to the doors just as three familiar figures stepped through.

Without a word they both flew forwards, sprinting straight at the three boys as fast as their legs could carry them. At the sound of the heavy footsteps Nate, Shane and Jason all turned, wide smiles gracing their faces. Shane caught Mitchie in a hug so hard that he lifted her feet from the ground, whispering greetings in her ear as she smiled into his shoulder. Nate and Caitlyn hugged firmly but briefly before Caitlyn stepped away, frowning.

"Have you put on weight Nate? You feel fatter than before."

Nate rolled his eyes. "Nice to see you too, Caity. And yes, I probably have. We tend to live on junk food when we're on tour."

"What good role models!" She teased, poking out her tongue. Nate immediately narrowed his eyes and lunged for her stomach, his fingers finding their mark. Caitlyn screamed and doubled over, yelling to her friends for help. Mitchie and Shane just stood and watched, Jason was distracted by the sweet shop visible from the next room.

"Nate get off!"

"Only if you tell me the password!" Nate said childishly. Caitlyn groaned and attempted to step backwards but Nate was one step ahead of her, wrapping his arms around her waist in order to hold her back as his fingers continued to roam her stomach. Caitlyn screamed again, attracting curious glances from other passengers.

"What's the password?" She managed to hiss.

"Antidisestablishmentarianism."

"What?"

"Antidisestablishmentarianism." Nate repeated with a smirk.

Caitlyn groaned. "I'm never going to be able to say that."

"Then I'm never going to stop tickling you."

Another groan. "Antidi- Anti- Antidisos- Antisid- Argh!" Caitlyn spun sharply on her heels and pinched Nate's cheek. His momentary shock gave her the spilt second she needed to pull out of his arms and duck behind Mitchie and Shane.

"What was that for?" Nate complained, rubbing his face. Caitlyn simply poked out her tongue at him.

Shane and Mitchie exchanged glances at the childish behaviour of their friends and then, on noticing how long they had been standing together, hastily pulled out of each others grasp.

"Guys?" Jason spoke up. "Can we go and get some food? Pleas? I'm starving!"

_xOx_

A pair of hands folded over Mitchie's eyes, blocking her view of the five orange juices she had been pouring.  
"Shane! I told you to wait with the others! I don't need help to pour drinks!"

"How did you know it was me?" Shane asked, returning her sight and blowing hard on the back of her head when she didn't respond.

Mitchie scowled playfully, turning around. "Leave my hair out of this, _please_." Her lips cracked into a smile and she gave in, grinning. "So did you get in trouble for however many shows you missed to come and save me?"

"Only one," Shane reminded her. "You chose the perfect time to become a rebel, the only time we had a two day break between shows. Our manager had a go at me about missing the Paris show but there was nothing he could do about it!"

As he spoke, Shane rested his hands on the counter behind Mitchie, a hand on either side of her body, and his eyes drifted to the silver necklace hanging on top of her clothes.

"That's pretty, where did you get it from?"

Mitchie glanced down at it. Over the past two months she had become so used to wearing the necklace that she had almost forgotten about it. Shane had obviously never seen it before; it was usually hidden underneath her clothes. "My parents got it for me for my birthday, they spent a fortune getting it personally designed. Nowhere makes 'Mitchie' necklaces."

"That's because Mitchie is an unusual name," Shane explained, watching the sunlight gleam off of the silver. "It's special, just like you." At his words, Mitchie's eyes flickered to meet his own and she could have sworn he was leaning closer when there was a shout from the next room.

"Hurry up with the drinks, I'm growing old here!"

Mitchie shook her head once and then turned around, picking up the tray from the counter and leaving the room quickly. Shane stayed where he was standing for a long moment, trying to figure out what had just happened.

_xOx_

When Connie arrived home late that Friday night, she was shocked to find a silent house. With her daughter and her four friends in one house, Connie had been prepared to face a small scale riot, but what she found was complete silence. She placed her coat and bag on the hall table and walked softly into the room at the end of the hall; she could hear the television blaring.

What she found was the opposite of what she had been expecting. Instead of five wild teenagers leaping around and yelling inappropriate things, she found four sleeping teens and a young adult munching quietly on popcorn. Jason waved when he saw her and her eyes swept over his brothers.

Shane had fallen asleep sprawled out across the sofa, his arms wrapped around Mitchie's shoulders, holding her sleeping body to her chest. Nate's head had slipped into Caitlyn's lap and her fingers were rested in his hair. She was smiling softly.

Connie smiled at the sight and drew out of the room. She closed the door with a muted click and, shaking her head at her daughter's denial of her obvious affection for Shane, began to prepare dinner.

_xOx_

"Nate, Nate!" Caitlyn leapt onto Nate's back before he could turn around, forcing him to stumble sideways in the general direction of Caitlyn's swimming pool.

"Calm down Caity, it's only been three minutes since you saw me."

Caitlyn glared playfully. "Guess what?"

"The sky turned into a giant banana and it rained pink monkeys?"

"What the-? Where did that even come from?"

"Well you obviously have something exotic to tell me so I tried to think of what it could be."

"Right… anyway, what I was _going _to say is that it's a month until New Year and you know what that means?"

"No idea."

"That it's only twenty five days until Christmas!" Caitlyn leapt up in the air at her own words, smiling crazily and earning an eye roll from her companion.

"Well depending on how you look at it – technically it's twenty six."

"No, Nate. It's twenty five days! Stop putting me down!"

"I wasn't trying to; I was just stating the facts." Nate paused, pointedly stepping away form the pool Caitlyn was creeping closer ad closer to. He had no wish to go swimming in November. "But you just reminded me of something; how would you like to spend New Year with my family and I?"

"Huh?"

"Well Shane's inviting Mitchie and her family up and I really don't want to be alone with a load of couples when New Year comes around, so how would you like to come and meet my parents? Your family can come too, if you like."

"Are you serious? I would love to come! It beats the New Year we normally have; Mitchie and I sitting in a corner while our parents get drunk. This year we can do it with you!".

"Don't you need to ask your Mum?"

"Yeah, good point." Caitlyn glanced over at her house and caught sight of a silhouette in the kitchen window. "Mum! Mum!"

Nate laughed at her frantically shouted question and followed her sprinting figure at a slower pace. He was pretty sure that Mrs Gellar would be okay with visiting for New Year, in the few months he had known her she had seemed to like him, care for him and accept him like she would her own son.

Sure enough, before Nate had even reached the door, Caitlyn came bounding back out and threw herself at Nate. She was grinning and bouncing, deliriously happy.

"She said yes!" Caitlyn informed him unnecessarily. Nate's own face split into a smile and he wrapped an arm around her waist.

"Good, because I really didn't want to spend New Year without you," Nate admitted. Underneath his curls his ears burned red but Caitlyn acted unaffected. As she dragged him into the heated building, out of the cold air, Caitlyn's jeans caught on a bush. She bent down to unhook the denim and Nate caught sight of a mark on her back.

"Caity, what's that?"

"What?" Caitlyn strained her neck to see the brown mark, a jagged line that stood out against her pale skin.

"Is that from the earthquake?"

"Yeah. Something cut into my back when I was unconscious. It's nothing important." Caitlyn reached to pull down her jumped self consciously but Nate stopped her.

"You mean you got that at one of my concerts?"

"Yeah, I guess. Why?" Nate's fingers left her wrist to touch the scar, feeling the very slightly raised skin and frowning.

"I just feel quite responsible. You were at one of my concerts so I kind of count you as my responsibility. The fact you've been scarred just… I don't know."

Caitlyn's cheeks tinted pink and she jerked her waist away from his hand. She didn't want to be responsible for making Nate feel guilty. The only thing it achieved was to make her herself feel guilty for letting him see the scar.

"Don't worry about it," She answered honestly. "I'd practically forgotten about it anyway. Come inside, Mum's cooking dinner."

**Next chapter is New Year and I promise that it gets more exciting. ;D I have most of it written, just a bit left to do. **

**Review, please? **

****Spwarkle****

**PS. Add me on Twitter, the link is on my profile :-P **


	11. Chapter 11

**Since I last updated I've passed the 5000 hits, 60 reviews and 60 subscribers mark! Thank you guys so much, you have no idea how happy that makes me! I think that you should like this chapter =)**

Shane shifted uncomfortably in his seat, shrugging his shoulders to edge his hood forward. His hands held the now cold coffee his eyes were glued to the arrivals, watching the hundreds of people arriving for their holidays and returning home in time for New Year.

He wasn't alone. Nate was sitting at a table across the café, his head bobbing along to the music he was quietly playing in one ear. He too was watching the doors open and close, his fingers crinkling the empty biscuit wrapper. Jason was leaning against a pillar right by the doors with a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes. The brothers were very careful not to look at each other, not to interact with one and other. The paparazzi were lingering; they had somehow discovered that Mitchie and Caitlyn were visiting and all wanted to be the first to snap a picture of Connect 3 and their friends.

The plane from San Francisco had landed fifteen minutes ago, half an hour late, and since then Shane and Nate had had their muscles tensed, ready to leap up at the slightest sign of the girls and their families. They knew that the press were likely to notice them first, there were photographers spaced out across the entire airport.

Contrary to their expectations, the boys were alerted to the arrival of the girls by not Caitlyn's frizzy hair or Mitchie's giggle but the sound of loud footsteps.

"Mitchie, Caitlyn, slow down!" Came a distant cry. Everybody in the room immediately looked up - either at the familiar names or just the loud shout – and everybody saw the two girls rush through the doors.

They were immediately surrounded by the photographers and journalists and both stopped in shock as their eyes adjusted to the flashing lights. Shane and Nate leapt to their feet and crossed the room, pushing through the crowd of almost twenty photographers and reaching the girls as fast as they could. Jason beat them there by seconds, pulling off his hat and throwing it to a girl across the room who look as if she was about to faint in shock. When she caught the hat the girl, who looked no more than eight years old, squealed and sprinted to join her parents.

"Group hug!" Jason announced as soon as he brothers had arrived, pulling his four companions into a squashed hug and managing to wave at the cameras at the same time. As he let them go, the girl's families entered the room.

Connie and Steve were just ahead of Mr and Mrs Gellar and when they stopped in shock they partially blocked Caitlyn's parents from view.

"Mr and Mrs Gellar, Connie, Steve," Nate greeted, taking control of the bewildered adults. "Come with us, we have a limo waiting outside." It wasn't technically true; the limo was waiting just up the road, out of sight where the press wouldn't find it, but it would be here in seconds if it was called.

The group of nine forced a walkway through the growing crowd of fans and press and the newcomers followed the three brothers out into the more populated entrance. To the locals, Connect 3 was nothing new; they were often seen wandering around shopping or visiting the beach, and the airport staff were accustomed to the celebrities flying in and out. But to everyone else, any foreign or even long distance visitors, Connect 3 was a novelty.

The crowds grew again and Shane instinctively took Mitchie's wrist to guide her through. Nate wrapped an arm around Caitlyn and Jason took control of the parents, pointing out the fastest route through and steering them to it.

When they were finally safe inside the black car, sitting behind the tinted windows, the introductions began.

"Mum, Dad," Caitlyn grabbed their attention. "This is Shane and Jason, you already know Nate."

"It's nice to meet you Mr and Mrs Gellar," Shane said, politely holding out his hand like he had been taught.

"Call me John," Caitlyn's father told him, shaking first Shane and then Jason's hands.

"And call me Madeline, Mrs Gellar makes me sound like a wrinkled old lady." his wife shuddered at the thought. Caitlyn laughed and leaned across to whisper in Nate's ear. Madeline raised an eyebrow, knowing all too well what her daughter was saying. "Thank you Caitlyn, that's quite enough."

"Sorry Mum."

Nate chuckled at Caitlyn's red face and threw his arm casually around her shoulders. Shane and Mitchie exchanged a glance as Caitlyn snuggled into Nate's shoulder.

"So, Caity-cat, has Nate asked you out yet?" John broke the silence with a deliberately awkward question. He had spent very little time around the two and even he could tell that they were only just hovering on the friends line.

"_Dad,_" Caitlyn hissed, blushing and shifting uncomfortably. "Nate and I are friends, just friends. Nothing more."

"Sorry honey, I guess I just wasn't home enough when you were at our house to notice how close you were." John smirked at his wife and everybody else in the vehicle as Nate and Caitlyn shifted under the concentrated gazes.

"So our parents apologised for not being able to come and pick you up," Shane improvised, feeling slightly sorry for his younger brother. "They don't like the paparazzi at all and they said they would wait back at home to greet you there."

"That's perfectly fine," Connie said with her optimistic smile. "I would have done the same in their situation."

Steve and John shared a look and Steve nodded before speaking. "Boys, do you happen to know if your parents have any beer?"

"Beer? Of course, Mr T- Steve. It's New Year, the only time of the year when we will _ever _have a legitimate excuse to find our parents drunk out of their minds. While we're out they most likely trekked the house to find every singing and dancing game we own, they have a lot of fun with those." Caitlyn and Mitchie burst out into laughter at Shane's words.

"Our parents are going to be the perfect match!" Mitchie exclaimed. "That's what our parents did at the end of last year; they stood in Cait's house destroying nineties classics while they were roaring drunk and couldn't remember any of it the next morning."

"Well at least not until we showed them the videos…" Caitlyn and Mitchie began to giggle again.

The half hour journey passed quickly. John, Madeline, Connie and Steve sat and spoke quietly to each other as their daughters and their friends messed around, catching up on what they had missed in the whole week they had been apart and discussing Christmas presents. When the car stopped, Mitchie and Caitlyn both scrambled towards the nearest window, desperate to see the boy's house.

The car pulled through the gates seconds later, turning a corner almost immediately and giving the girls the perfect view of the house.

"Oh My God."

They spoke in unison, their jaws dropping at the sight before them. The house was closer to a mansion in size, a huge white building standing at the end of the gravel driveway. The overhanging roof was held up by two tall pillars that stood on either side of the grand door and towered over the perfect green hedges running along under the four identical, sparkling clean windows.

The limo stopped at the bottom of the steps up to the oversized door and Caitlyn was the first one out, stepping into the weak winter sun and staring up at the monstrous house in front of her. Nate grabbed her suitcase from where it had fallen onto the floor and followed after her, pushing her frozen form up the steps. Shane and Mitchie waited for the four adults and Jason to leave before joining the group at the top of the stairs.

"Don't be worried." Nate advised. "We're a perfectly normal family, we just have a few more guest rooms than the average person."

"I'll say." Mitchie whispered to Shane, her eyes wide. "How the hell do you afford a place like this?"

"We have too much money." Shane admitted. "Mum and Dad wanted a new house so we offered to buy them one. They were kind of overwhelmed at first but they got used to it pretty fast."

Jason suddenly sighed. "Are we just going to stand out here all day? Mum and Dad are waiting and Mum said she was making cookies!"

"Jase, calm down," Nate placed a hand on his brother's arm. "They're only cookies after all."

_xOx_

"Shane! Save me!" Mitchie screamed with laughter and vaulted the spotless white sofa, crashing to the floor with more power than she had intended and rolling across the carpet. Shane followed suite seconds later, narrowly missing Mitchie's face with his bare feet. He landed on the balls of his feet and fell forwards just as Nate sprinted into the room. The two brothers landed in a heap on the floor.

"Well there's something you don't see every day," Caitlyn said with a smirk, snapping a picture on her phone and then offering a hand to Mitchie. "The Grey brothers in a tangle because Shane was chasing after Mitchie. I think I'm going to keep that picture and then sell it in a few years time."

Mitchie laughed as she pulled down her top and brushed it off. Shane and Nate groaned, claiming back their own various limbs and slowly standing up.

"How long now?" Nate asked. Caitlyn checked her watch and rolled her eyes.

"It's almost eleven, just over an hour."

"An hour more of that?" Shane asked, petrified. The four stopped for a moment, listening to the tuneless singing from the other side of the house. Their six parents – and Jason for some unknown reason – were all drunk. They had been drinking since seven and by nine they had swapped the drinks for the television. There had been a good hour of dance competitions; friendly contests between genders, ages and families. Shane, Nate and Jason had made the mistake of buying the dancing game for their Wii and to their drunken parents nothing had seemed more appealing. It was only when they had collapsed onto the floor, exhausted and hot, that the adults had switched to singing.

Mitchie, Caitlyn, Shane and Nate had only been able to stand half an hour of the out of key tunes before they had left. For a reason that none of them could remember they had begun a chase around the house, Shane and Nate verses Mitchie and Caitlyn. Minutes after they began, Caitlyn had suddenly sprung on Nate and their chase had reversed

They retired to the kitchen for a while, sitting on high stools at the kitchen island and sipping fizzy drinks as the relentless singing drifted to their ears.

"Thank God we gave the staff the night off." Nate muttered as a particularly sour note penetrated his well tuned ear. "Could you imagine what would happen if the world got wind of this?"

Caitlyn smiled. "There would probably be an expensive enquiry into where you got your musical talent from."

"We didn't get it from anywhere, we're just that talented."

"You can't say that, Nate! That's like saying that the egg came before the chicken just because you said so!"

"But everyone knows the chicken came before the egg!"

"Nobody does know, that's the problem!"

"Oh, I have a joke."

"Shoot me."

"Alright then; what do you get when you mix a chicken and an egg?"

"I don't know Nate, what _do _you get when you mix a chicken and an egg?"

"A dilemma!"

Mitchie and Shane had long ago tuned out the pointless discussion and were sneaking glances at each other, blushing whenever they were caught. Ever since their Almost Kiss a month ago Mitchie had felt that Shane was, not distant, but reserved. Up until today he had been very careful not to touch her, had avoided making any comments that could even hint at being taken the wrong way and the silences when they were left alone were almost awkward.

Yes, Mitchie thought, the Almost Kiss had changed their relationship in a way that was slightly intimidating. Was Shane embarrassed by it, was he afraid of giving Mitchie the wrong message? Was his problem that he didn't feel that way at all and he regretted it? The very thought made Mitchie's heart flutter. The Almost Kiss had encouraged her in the train of thought that she and Shane could be more than just friends and once she had gone down that road she never wanted to have to back up it.

There was a distant shout, interrupting the discussions and thoughts of the four. "Kids! Five minutes!"

"We're not kids!" They shouted back, laughing as the same words burst from everyone's mouths. There was no response.

When they stumbled into the over sized living room a few seconds later, they were greeted by the sight of six adults huddled around the flat screen and Jason lying in the back corner of the room, unconscious and snoring. Shane darted over to poke Jason, unsuccessfully attempting to wake him up, before hurrying to join the rest of his family and his two friends.

Nate, Mitchie and Caitlyn had no even tried to break through the tight huddle of giggling adults and settled on standing just behind them, still able to hear as the countdown began.

"Ten!" Came the shout through the speakers.

"Happy last ten seconds of this year," Shane whispered to Mitchie, breaking all of the silent rules from the past month and sliding his hands around her waist.

"Nine! Eight!"

Caitlyn was grinning like a Cheshire cat. She was truly spending the last few seconds of the year with the most important people in her life. She opened her mouth to add her voice to the countdown.

"Seven! Six! Five!"

Mitchie was barely noticing the countdown. Shane had never held her this close before; she could feel his chest pressed up against her back. She couldn't focus on anything else.

"Four! Three! Two!"

The four friends all grinned as the final number burst from their mouths.

"One! Happy New Year!"

Mitchie felt Shane spin her around and instead of feeling his arms wrap around her in a New Year hug, she felt his lips pressed up against hers. Her body was frozen in shock for a second; she didn't know how to respond to the fact that her wildest dreams were coming true.

Nate and Caitlyn pulled out of their hug, smiling, when Caitlyn suddenly squealed and pointed over Nate's shoulder. He turned to see Shane and Mitchie wrapped in each others arms, lip locked and completely oblivious to the world around them.

"Happy New Year Caity," He said with a laugh, turning his friend away from the fresh couple.

**Okay, so it feels like it's taken me ages to write that. I don't know why; I've really enjoyed writing it!**

**What did you think? Are you glad that Smitchie finally kissed? I know I am; I've been itching to write this chapter for weeks!**

**I'm on holiday this weekend so no guarantees as to when Chapter 12 will be up, I've had to post this from my phone in the middle of the motorway because I was too lazy to post it before I left =D**

****Spwarkle****


	12. Chapter 12

Mitchie pulled away first. Her breathing was heavy, laboured, as she stood pressed up against Shane's chest, her arms still around his neck, waiting for him to speak. When he didn't say anything she decided to take it into her own hands.

"I- You – We – What was that?"

"Well, I _think _it was a kiss." Shane told her truthfully. "What else did you think it was?"

"Shane!"

"Fine. I kissed you because I have secretly liked you ever since your birthday and wanted to see if you would kiss back, which you did do, might I add."

"I know, but-."

"Look, if you want to then we can drop the subject and pretend it never happened, never speak about it again." Shane untangled his arms from around her waist and made to step away but Mitchie stopped him.

"I never said I didn't want it. I was just shocked, that's all. In fact, that kiss was my wildest fantasy, until three minutes ago it became reality. I just… I really never expected it to happen, not now at least."

"So you didn't mind it?"

"No, not at all."

"So," Shane stepped back towards her and narrowed his eyes playfully. "You wouldn't mind if I did _this_?"

Shane's hands fastened around her waist and Mitchie grinned at him before leaning up to meet him in the kiss half way. Nate and Caitlyn, standing just feet away, gagged and turned to their parents. The six adults were still watching the television.

"Connie, Steve!" Caitlyn caught the adult's attention and all of them turned to her as she pointed quietly at Shane and Mitchie.

"Aww!" Mrs Grey, Connie and Madeline immediately let out identical sighs of adoration, loud sighs that caused Mitchie to pull away, blushing, and turn.

"You two are so cute!" Connie told her daughter. She hiccupped before giggling childishly and wobbling on her feet.

"It took you long enough though," Steve commented. "We never thought you would get there!" Mitchie and Shane shared an embarrassed glance but the adults had already moved on.

"Now all we have to do is wait for Caitlyn and Nate to admit they're together."

"Mum!" Nate scolded, his cheeks red. "Cait and I are just friends!" As if to demonstrate his point, he rested his arm around Caitlyn's shoulders.

Connie shook her head and hiccupped. "You two would make such a," Hiccup. "Cute couple! Madeline, you _must _convince your daughter to admit she's secretly dating Nate! We all-" Hiccup. "-know!"  
"We're not dating!" The two in question yelled angrily.

"They're really not," Mitchie assured her parents. She opened her mouth to continue but Shane whispered something in her ear and she turned away, giggling. Caitlyn rolled her eyes and then narrowed them as she caught Madeline's calculating stare.

"What are you thinking Mum?" Out of the corner of her eye Caitlyn noticed Shane and Mitchie slipping out of the room.

"I'm wondering about the best way to get you two toget- oh! I wasn't supposed to admit that!" Madeline giggled and whispered to Connie behind her.

"I'm going to bed." Nate announced. He glanced at Jason's immobile form and sighed. "Mum, Dad, if Jason wakes up then please send him to bed, if it's the only sane things you do this morning."

Caitlyn leapt on Nate's back as he left, wrapping her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist. She laughed as Nate stumbled slightly but urged him on.

"You're not the only one who needs your sleep," She reminded him. "Pop stars need no more sleep than normal teenagers."

"We're not actually teenagers." Nate told her. "We are technically adults now that we're eighteen."

"Yeah but there's still this _teen _bit to think about. Because our ages have teens in them, we are still teenagers."

Nate took a left turn and Caitlyn found herself in a hallway she had not been shown to on the short tour. "Are you really comparing yourself to hormonal sixteen year olds here?"

"Yup. I loved being sixteen!"

"Why? What was so good about being sixteen?"

"I don't know… I guess I just felt like a proper teenager for the first time."

"Okay then…" Nate had reached the top of a narrow staircase and Caitlyn frowned. They were standing on a tiny block of carpeted floor with only one door to use.

"Where are we, Nate?"

"This is the back way upstairs. I think it's technically for the servants but we don't really have any. We just have gardeners so we use this route."

Sliding Caitlyn back onto her feet, Nate turned the handle on the door and pushed it forward, waving Caitlyn through. Intrigued, Caitlyn stepped around the door and found herself in a familiar hallway. They were on the far side of the house, in the wide hallway that held the majority of the guest bedrooms as well as Shane's.

"Nice," She commented. Nate chuckled. "So why exactly does Shane want his bedroom down here, so far away from all of yours?"

"Because he wanted some privacy apparently." Nate shrugged. "I think he just wanted to be different to be honest."

"Right… Where did Shane and Mitchie disappear to downstairs?"

Nate grinned as he crouched down, nodding his head at the door behind Caitlyn. Caitlyn took his hint and dropped down onto the balls of her feet. Nate crept across the hallway and the two friends pressed their ears to the door.

"They've gone very quiet out there," Mitchie's muffled voice said. "Do you think they've left?"  
"I don't know, I hope so." Caitlyn held a hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle. Nate grinned and reached up for the door handle, catching Caitlyn's silent laughter before pulling down on the handle and pushing the door wide open.

Mitchie screamed, Shane swore and Nate and Caitlyn collapsed onto the floor, laughing hysterically. Tomato red, Mitchie slipped out from where she had been lying under Shane on his bed and sat with her back against the headboard, her arms holding her knees to her chest. Shane wiped a smudge of lip gloss from his lips before he spoke.

"Did you _have _to do that?"

Nate, still laughing, only managed to nod vigorously.

"It's a good thing we did though," Caitlyn said. "You've been together all of fifteen minutes and if we hadn't come in here there was no telling what you might have ended up dong within in the first half an hour…" She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively and, if it was possible, Mitchie turned an even deeper red. "Boys, I think I'm going to sleep in Mitchie's room tonight, right by the _locked _door, just to make sure that she's… um… _safe_…"

Shane and Mitchie refused to make eye contact as Caitlyn took a hold on her friend's arm and led her from the room. She paused to mutter a few words to Nate and he chuckled before nodding. The two brothers waited until they heard Mitchie and Caitlyn talking in their room to speak.

"What was that, man?" Nate fixed Shane with an accusatory glare.

The older boy held up his hands. "It was not what it looked like, I promise! We were just kissing and lying down, nothing was going to happen. I'm not stupid."

"Right, you're not stupid." Nate rolled his eyes. "Just remember that Mitchie is a year younger then you and you are quite likely her first boyfriend. She doesn't seem like the sort of girl to date every boy she sees."

"She's not," Shane defended his girlfriend. "Mitchie hasn't ever had a proper boyfriend before, only the sort of boyfriend that eight year old girls can have."

"Exactly. Just be careful and please make sure I never catch you two sucking face again. Ever."

"Whatever you say Nate." But Shane had clearly already lost track of the conversation. Nate backed into the hallway with a sceptical expression and, knowing that everybody else was settling, headed to his own room.

_xOx_

Mitchie and Shane were the last ones into the kitchen. Shane had stayed in the bathroom to sort his hair and Mitchie had waited patiently for him. Nate and Caitlyn were sitting at the kitchen island, talking quietly and poking fun at the seven hung over adults.

Jason was obviously the least affected, the only person in the room over the age of twenty who could open his eyes the full distance. But even he was holding a cup of coffee in one hand and his own head in the other. Mr and Mrs Grey, Connie, Steve, Madeline and John were all sitting in various positions around the table, their heads resting on the cool glass, grumbling and groaning at every creaking floorboard.

Shane winked at Mitchie before entering the room with a loud, cheerful shout. "Morning!" Mr Grey made a muffled sound of anger at his nineteen year old son before dropping his head into his arms and plugging his ears with his fingers. The four teens discreetly left the room. Mitchie and Caitlyn followed Shane and Nate down yet another corridor and down a narrow staircase.

"Where are we going?" Caitlyn asked, grabbing hold of Nate's hand as she stumbled. Nate guided her onto the flat ground and pushed open a door on the seemingly unending stone wall.

The room inside was larger than either girl had imagined, a wide room with a high roof and bright lights. Midway across the room was a wooden wall with spotless glass windows, leading straight into what appeared to be,

"Your recording studio!" Caitlyn sprinted inside and threw herself onto the chair, spinning round and round until Nate placed his hand on the back of it.

"Yes Cait, it's nice to see you're so excited about our spinning chairs."

"Hey, the chair is more interesting than a room that is empty except for a drum kit, keyboard and a couple of guitars. If there was anybody in there then I might be a little bit excited but a room with a blue carpet? Not so much."

"Oh this is on!" Nate pushed the chair and sent Caitlyn sliding across the flat carpet and into the far wall, her legs narrowly missing the opportunity to be crushed.

"No fair! I wasn't ready!" Caitlyn protested, sprinting back at him and crossing her arms. As soon as Nate let down his guard, she grinned maliciously and kicked the back of his knees so that he toppled to the floor.

"Mature Cait, real mature."

Knowing the mock fight had many more blows to go; Mitchie wound her fingers in with Shane's pulling their intertwined hand up to rest under her chin.

"So, Shane, if I'm going to be your girlfriend, are you going to take me on a date?"

"Of course I am. But only when you're least expecting it. We've got a few shows at the end of this week and then we're coming back to San Francisco for a few days and while we're there I'm going to take you on a date. I'm just not telling you when."

"Please?" Mitchie forced a pout onto her face and stared beseechingly at Shane until he had to turn his head away.

"The pout won't work Mitch and anyway, I can't tell you because I'm not one hundred percent sure myself yet."

Mitchie frowned but one look at Shane's soft smile forced her to relent and she leaned forward to kiss his lips. Not as p[reoccupied in their fight as Shane and Mitchie had assumed, Nate and Caitlyn were there in a second, pulling them apart.

"What did I tell you last night Shane?" Nate rubbed his eyes ferociously. "I've only just managed to clean my eyes from then."  
"Well actually," Shane smirked. "You told me that this morning because it was after midnight. And I don't really care."

"I do. Caitlyn does. Our parents and Connie and Steve will and I bet Jason will side with me. You two are not allowed any form of physically contact when there is anybody else in the room, please."

"Isn't that a _little _bit over the top?" Mitchie reached behind her to take Shane's hand again. He squeezed her fingers and she giggled.

Nate ran his hand through his hair. "You know what? I give up! I'm just going to leave until you two can be within ten feet of each other without being all icky." He strode from the room, Caitlyn hot on his heels. When they had safely reached the top of the staircase they both began to laugh.

"Well at least they won't be kissing in front of us any more. Mitch will feel bad and-."

"And Shane will do anything for her." Nate finished, grinning. "Come on, breakfast awaits."

**It's been over a week since I posted chapter 11, hasn't it? I'm sorry! I've been exhausted and busy all this week and I was out yesterday… now is the first chance I've had to finish and post this for you guys! I've had almost a thousand more hits since the last chapter was posted so thank you everyone!**

**Review please? ;D**

****Spwarkle** **


	13. Chapter 13

**I have no excuse for my almost three week absence except being busy... sorry! :D**

"Mitchie, Caitlyn!"

"Mitchie!"

"Miss Gellar!"

"Over here!"

"Girls, can we have a quick word?"

"Mitchie what do you have to say about the pictures that were leaked last week?"

"Caitlyn, is it true that you and Nate are keeping your relationship a secret?"

"Are you and Shane engaged, Mitchie?"

"Can we have a picture?"

The questions were being fired at them from all directions. In the mere four days since they had arrived home, Mitchie and Caitlyn had barely been able to leave their homes without being hounded by their mutual neighbours – the press.

Forty minutes ago, Mitchie had received a call from her best friend saying that she didn't care who was camped at the end of her driveway, she needed to go shopping. Caitlyn had been able to persuade Mitchie out within minutes but the reality was much worse than they had feared. There were several dozen people crowded around them, reeling out question after question, their assumptions growing wilder by the second. The two girls were holding hands firmly, pulling each other through the rabid crowd with serious expressions and helping jerk each other from the grips of the insolent paparazzi.

They ignored the attempted interrogation as they pushed their way into their favourite little coffee shop, loosing the thick crowds at the door. As soon as they had closed the door, a voice called out to them from behind the counter.

"Cait! Mitch!" Peggy grinned, running to see them and engulfing them in a hug. "Happy New Year!"

Caitlyn and Mitchie grinned at Peggy. They hadn't seen their friend in just over three weeks but she was acting like it had been months, if not longer.

"Hey Pegs," Caitlyn said. She was conscious of the flashes still coming through the glass door and windows. "Do you think you can let us go so that we can get out of the way of them?"

Peggy understood instantly and guided the two girls across the almost empty café and through a door marked 'STAFF ONLY'. Mitchie and Caitlyn grinned as they entered the familiar room; a small lounge that smelt perpetually of heavy coffee and was full of ridiculously comfortable armchairs.

"Mum, I'm taking my break now!" Peggy announced. The woman tapping away on the computer in the corner looked up with a kindly smile.

"Oh hello girls. Peggy, you have the rest of the day off and I'll take care of the café. Invite Ella around if you like."

"Thank you Mum!" Peggy removed the apron that was hanging around her neck and threw it onto a hook on the wall as Mitchie and Caitlyn sunk back into separate chairs. As soon as Ms. Dupree had left the room, Peggy spun to face her friends. "Okay, now tell me everything!"

"What do you want to know?" Mitchie asked her, smirking.

"Tell me what it's like to kiss Shane Grey!" Peggy almost shrieked.

"What would make you think that I've kissed my best friend?" She teased.

Peggy dived for the desk squashed in the corner and a magazine flew straight at Mitchie. "This! Look!"

Mitchie had seen the picture a thousand times. It seemed to be all around her, haunting her constantly every day since it had been taken right the way back at the beginning of the New Year. Nate, Shane and Jason had taken the two girls to the zoo as a farewell present and, naively, Mitchie and Shane had decided that because they couldn't see any cameras then it must be safe to lapse into a kiss. Somebody had probably become very rich selling the snapshot from their phone to the press.

"Mitchie is it really you?" Peggy asked, squinting at the blurred picture on the front of the cover. Mitchie nodded just as her phone began to ring. She glanced at the caller id.

"Ella! Hey!" There was a few seconds in which Caitlyn and Peggy could only hear distant, high pitched talking. "Ella calm down! Come to Peggy's place; we're out the back." She paused and rolled her eyes. "Of course I'll wait for you! Now come on, as fast as you can." Just as her finger was about to press on the button and end the call, Mitchie snapped the phone back to her ear. "Ells, are you still there? Yeah? Good. Anyway, you've got to tell us how your dates with Jason went! And yes I know that there was more than one!"

"What?" Peggy hissed at Caitlyn as Mitchie continued to tease Ella. "There was more than one?"

"Three," Caitlyn answered her. "They've been on three dates so far."

"You haven't seen Ella in almost a month yet you know more about her than I do? How is that fair?" Peggy pouted and Caitlyn grinned, patting her friend on the head.

"It's okay Peggy. Remember that we were practically living with the boys for those three weeks so we knew exactly when and where Jason was."

"True..." Peggy's pout folded into a grin. "So are you and Nate together yet?"

"You're worse that the paparazzi!"

"Yeah but I know that I'll get an honest answer."

"How do you _know _that? Maybe I'll twist the truth or maybe even tell a complete lie."

"No you wouldn't. We've known each other years, you can't lie to me and get away with it and you know it."

"You don't know. I might have lied to you about everything in my life, even my name."

Peggy's dead look said it all. "I'm not an idiot Cait. Now tell me what's going on with you and Nate. Please?" She added hurriedly.

"Well on New Year's Eve he proposed and we flew off to Vegas and got married." Caitlyn's eyes sparkled with laughter at Peggy's loud scoff and she broke out into a smile. "Nothing is going on with Nate and I, Pegs. We're just friends, that's it. Nothing more, nothing less."

"Sure you are," Peggy narrowed her eyes. "Are you saying that if Nate kissed you then you wouldn't enjoy it?"

"Peggy, would you enjoy it if Dylan kissed you?"

"Dylan is my eight year old step brother. He kisses me most nights before he goes to bed."

"You know what I mean!" Caitlyn sighed. "I don't feel that way for Nate."

Peggy opened her mouth to respond again but the door flew open, smashing into the wall and shaking the few framed photographs hanging there. Ella fell inside, holding her phone to her ear and her skirt down with her spare hand.

"I'm here Mitchie!" She said into the phone.

"I know, I can see you." Mitchie told her patiently. "Do you want to hang up now and speak to me in person?"

"I hadn't thought of that!" Ella giggled. "Bye bye!" She turned around and came face to face with her amused friends. "Mitchie! Caitlyn! Peggy! I haven't seen you in ages!"

"Ella you saw me yesterday!" Peggy reminded her with a chuckle. Ella shook her head and rolled her eyes, wrapping her fragile arms around her best friends.

"Did you guys miss me? I missed you! I saw that picture of you and Shane on the magazine and you told me you would tell us what it's like being Shane Grey's girlfriend if I cam over!"

"Only if you tell us how your dates with Jason were!" Peggy said.

"Not bad." Ella answered instantly, perching on the wide arm of the nearest chair. "He's a really nice guy: he's funny, kind, good looking, a little bit old but he's still awesome. I just don't really think there's any spark, you know? We're great friends, he's a great guy to know and hang out with, but I can't really see us getting anywhere." Ella grinned cheekily. "At the end of our last date we kind of agreed to be just friends."

"What?" Mitchie, Caitlyn and Peggy all wore various expressions of shock.

"Well, he didn't feel anything either. He said that he didn't want to hurt my feelings but he would prefer to just have me as a friend, a close one but not anything serious and that he didn't like me in the sort of way he would like a girlfriend." There was a few seconds of silence before bubbly Ella returned. "Now tell us all about Shane Grey!"

Mitchie blushed. "He's cool?"  
"Not good enough girlie," Peggy scolded. "Details, we want to know everything; how he asked you out, when he first kissed you, what happened afterwards and when he's going to see you again." Caitlyn chuckled as she turned her attention to her phone. She had heard it all before. It was typical Mitchie to not talk about the one object of her attention when she was asked to. Caitlyn had barely heard her speak about anything else since the beginning of the year.

"I guess he's a good kisser..." Mitchie mumbled. Ella squealed and leaned closer, Peggy following her lead. "That's what he did first. He didn't ask me out, he kissed me at New Year and then asked me out afterwards."

"Have you been on your date yet?"

Mitchie shook her head. "He said he was going to come and see me really soon down here so that he would have time to set it all up and not have to rush it. It kind of worries me about what he's going to do if he's spending this much time on it."

"Probably something Mitchie-proof." Caitlyn said wisely.

"Huh?"

"Something you can't hurt yourself on. Something that you can't trip over or cut your finger open with, something that won't fall and crush you."

"Is that even possible?" Peggy asked.

"Shut up!" Mitchie flashed a hurt expression but Caitlyn looked away when her phone vibrated in her hand.

"Cheer up Mitchie, I've found you something to smile about."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yes, I have. The boys are coming down on Sunday night so that Shane can take you on this long awaited date."

"Sunday? But that's in four days!" Mitchie sprung to her feet. "I'm never going to find a dress in four days!"

"Yes you are Mitchie," Peggy assured her. "You have us three to help you. If we go out now then we can have found you a dress by the end of the day."

"But all of those guys with cameras are hanging around outside." Ella suddenly said. "I had to push past them all to get in. They want pictures of you and pictures of you shopping for a date with Shane will just make it worse."

"So what, Cait and I have to stay here until they leave?"

"Yeah."

"No." Peggy slowly stood up. "I live above the café, right? And you're always having a go at me for having too many clothes and accessories, right?"

Caitlyn and Mitchie nodded, beginning to understand. Peggy rarely wore the same outfit more than once. She had an entire cupboard overflowing with new clothes and a dressing table crammed with necklaces, bracelets, earrings, glasses, rings, makeup and nail varnish. Most of it had never been worn and never would be; Peggy had an annual clear out in the middle of summer where she sold a lot of her belongings in the café. Using Peggy's accessories and the back gate it should be an easy task to slip into town without being followed by the paparazzi.

The four girls ran up the narrow staircase and through the tiny apartment. Peggy's room was squashed in with a perfect view of the tiny garden at the back of the house. Her bed sat directly under the glass with her wardrobe to the right and her dressing table to the left. She crossed the room in a few steps, opening them both wide.

"You won't need many clothes unless you really want," she instructed. "Just a cardigan or coat or something will do. Accessories are something completely different."

_xOx_

Half an hour later the four girls descended the staircase again. They could easily have been mistaken for a different group of friends. They had fiddled with their hair and tampered with their makeup, adding flowers, clips and bows to their locks until their styles had been completely switched. Then they had traded their own clothes for some of Peggy's unused ones and pulled on hats.

"I feel weird." Caitlyn complained, tugging at her uncharacteristic skirt in an attempt to cover more of her legs. Mitchie slapped her wrist and she groaned. "I hate skirts."

"You hate the paparazzi more." Peggy reminded her as she turned the key in the lock and allowed her friends outside into the oddly bright sunlight. Mitchie pulled down the pair of bright pink sun glasses that Peggy had persuaded her to wear and instantly regained the sense of sight.

"How is it this sunny when it's so cold?" Ella asked, pulling her thick pink cardigan tighter around herself.

"Magic." Caitlyn told her sarcastically. Ella's eyes lit up and she grinned.

"I _knew _that magic was real!"

Caitlyn groaned. "Sometimes I despair about you, Ella!"

"What do you mean?"

"Never mind." Caitlyn shivered. "How do you wear these skirts in the winter, Ells?"

"With leggings, like you are."

"But I'm freezing!"

"You get used to it."

"Hurry up, you two!" Peggy shouted from across the garden, where she and Mitchie were already outside the gate and in the street.

"Coming!" They yelled back. Mitchie placed a hand on the fence next to her as she waited and then groaned as a sizeable piece of wood managed to slide itself inside her right thumb.  
"Sugar that hurt!" She shook her hand and screwed up her face. "Ow!"

"This," Caitlyn said. "Is exactly why Shane needs to Mitchie-proof your date."

"So that I don't get a splinter?"

Ella grinned as she pulled a pair of tweezers from her bag. "Not exactly. More because Shane hasn't known you for years and he doesn't wander around prepared for every incident like we do."

"Even you weren't prepared for the earthquake, Ella." Mitchie grimaced as she took a hold of the splinter with the end of the metal pincers. "None of us could be prepared for that." She yelled out in pain as the wood jerked out of her thumb and flew through the air, narrowly missing Caitlyn's eye. "Sorry Cait!"

"It's okay," Caitlyn said, rubbing her cheek where she had been hit. "Just be more careful next time, please?"  
"Quit the chit chat!" Peggy suddenly said. "We have a date to shop for and Mitchie has got to have a nice dress, whatever she ends up doing." She, Mitchie and Ella all squealed and skipped off up the street in excitement.

"Shopping!" Caitlyn muttered, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "I'm thrilled!"

**Like I said, I have no real excuse, I've just been ridiculously busy over these past few weeks. Thank you all though: I'm still getting reviews and alerts every couple of days! The next few chapters are more interesting (the first date, Jason **_**might **_**find himself a girlfriend and there could, possibly, be some Naitlyn action!) **

**I'm going to start a little competition going here: TI has two more favs, two more alerts, five more reviews and three less chapters than this. It also has five hundred less hits. Can we see if we can overtake it on this chapter on reviews at least? I would be so happy if we could! :D If you've read them both then which one do you enjoy the most? What one is your favourite?**

**Anyway, thank you if you bothered to read this note, it's kind of pointless but I feel really guilty for not updating in so long! :S**

****Spwarkle****


	14. Chapter 14

**I am so sorry! It's been almost a month, I think. The time's gone really fast to me! I blame the weather, we've finally got some decent, as in really hot, sun and I've been out all the time – cycling, sunbathing, walking, shopping, making daisy chains. Then I was on holiday last week and it rained... but now the sun's back! I'm squeezing in time to write this because I feel bad! :S**

Mitchie was pacing back and forth across her room, her eyes on the clock. Each time the minute hand crept forward another notch, she would frown a little bit more. Shane had said seven at the latest; it was now thirteen minutes and twenty-four seconds after that.

"Mitch, can't you just sit still for two minutes!" Caitlyn was sitting on Mitchie's bed with Ella and Peggy, all three of them excited to see Mitchie and Shane go off on their first date but entirely sick of Mitchie's constant movement.

"He's late, Cait! He promised seven and he's not here. Why hasn't he rung? Oh my God." Mitchie paled. "Maybe he's decided that I'm not good enough, maybe he doesn't want to date me any more. Maybe there was a plane crash and he was horribly deformed so now he's lying in some awful hospital somewhere and nobody knows who he is! Maybe he lost his memory!" Mitchie's breathing grew frantic. "We didn't even get to have our first date and now he's forgotten all about me! What are the press going to say? It's all my fault! What if he was reading one of my texts when he was hurt? What if he was trying to call me? Now he can't remember me at all!"

"Mitch, calm down. It's not even been fifteen minutes yet!"

But Mitchie was beyond reassurance. "It's been fourteen minutes and seven seconds. Shane is never this late. He should have called by now. Where is he? Do you think he's okay? What if he _has _been in a dreadful accident? What is the world going to think of me? How am I ever going to show my face in public again if Shane Grey died while he was driving to take me on a date? What if he was worried about being late and got caught speeding? Can he afford to bail himself out? I know he's a pop star and everything, but they don't always have as much money as they think. He'll spend his life rotting in a cell!"

"It's _rock_ star," corrected a voice from directly behind the frantic girl. "And I would never get _caught_ speeding. Our plane was late landing and I was in such a hurry to get here that I left my phone on it." Shane grinned at his flustered girlfriend. "It's that simple. No memory loss, no deformities, no changing my mind. I could never forget you, Mitchie Torres, and besides, everybody knows who I am. There's no way I would ever be unrecognised."

Shane was leaning on the wall just inside her bedroom, smirking. He was dressed in an uncharacteristic shirt and tie, a black jacket hanging over his shoulder. His hair had a slight curl to it, almost like he had forgotten to straighten it this morning. Mitchie found the curls rather more attractive than his usual style.

"Stop being so vain!" Mitchie scolded playfully. Shane pretended to pout. "That's better. Now, do I get a proper hello?"

Shane immediately swooped in to kiss her. Mitchie grabbed onto his arms to keep herself standing as she kissed him back. Perched on the bed, Ella and Peggy watched the lengthened peck with wide eyes and Caitlyn just rolled her eyes.

"You'll be sick of it by the time they leave," she told her friends. "Absolutely sick of it."

"Shut it Caitlyn." Mitchie muttered over Shane's shoulder. "You'll be just the same when you get together with Nate." Shane chuckled and Caitlyn looked down, unsuccessfully hiding the slight blush that had claimed her face.

Shane grinned at the curly haired girl. "Did Nate tell you that he's waiting at your house, Cait?"

"He what?"

"He went round your house to see you but you weren't in. Madeline invited him in and he's waiting for you to get back."

Caitlyn squealed and leapt to her feet, leaving the room as fast as her legs could carry her and yelling a goodbye to Mitchie from halfway down the stairs.

"If that's not infatuation," Ella said with a grin. "Then I don't know what is."

Peggy chuckled. "I think that's the biggest word I've ever heard you use, Ells. Now come on, let's go, leave Shane and Mitchie alone."

Mitchie waited until she could see her friends retreating up the driveway out of her window to turn back to Shane.

"Now will you tell me where we're going? Please? I've been trying to guess all week but you never reply!"

"It's deliberate," Shane told her, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her against him. "But before we go, let's just make the most of this. I've missed you."

"I've missed you to." Mitchie sighed dreamily and then pulled back slightly to fiddle with the straps of her dress. Shane ran his finger under the thin material to help her untwist it and their gazes met.

"Come on, we have to get going or well be late."

"Late? So it's booked?"

"Kind of."

"How is it kind of booked? Are you just relying on your fame to get you in or something?"  
"No, I booked it, but we don't need to worry about loosing it if we're late."

"Oh." Mitchie chewed on the inside of her lip thoughtfully. Where was he taking her? There were a lot of places that came to mind but none of them really seemed to be right. They didn't have the right feel for the evening.

Shane led her down the stairs and Mitchie said goodbye to her parents, slipped a thin black cardigan over her dark purple dress and then followed Shane out of the door, taking the hand he offered to assist her.

The night was warm and cloudless. Very few people were out in the streets, almost as if the entire city had decided to give Mitchie and Shane the most romantic date possible. As they traversed the quiet roads, Shane stood, opening the sun roof and poking his torso out. He leant his arms on the sleek black roof of his limousine and looked back down.

"Come on Mitch, you're really missing a sight here."

"I don't know Shane, I'll probably fall out or something."

Shane chuckled. "I won't let you, I promise."

He held out his hand and Mitchie reached for it uncertainly, relying heavily on Shane's strength to pull her to her feet and focusing on keeping her head and the ceiling respectable distances apart. Shane happily helped her keep her balance in the treacherous heels as she poked her head out into the cold night air and gasped.

She had no idea where they were, but the view was beautiful. All she could see ahead of her was a channel of perfectly grown, identical trees. The road was totally symmetrical, minus the vehicle she was standing in, which suddenly seemed small and insignificant to the world. There must have been hundreds of them, each bending in towards the centre of the road with a grace and elegance that she had never expected to see in any type of plant. The leaves brushed gently high above her head and through the gaps she could clearly make out the sky.

The moon was shining brightly and the stars were illuminating the sky. Between the natural light and the occasional solar powered lamp planted in the ground, Mitchie could see each tree in detail. She had no idea that anywhere so close to her house could be so delightful.

"It's..." She struggled to find the right word. "I don't know how to describe it, Shane. It's _gorgeous_."

"It's not the only thing." Mitchie glanced sideways to find Shane's face just inches away from her own. He leaned carefully forwards and lightly pressed his lips to hers. She knew what he was doing. He was conveying all of the things he felt for her across, showing her rather than telling her how he felt, but he was being cautious about it. He didn't want to alarm her or scare her thoughts, he simply wanted to tell her that he was there for her. Mitchie kissed him softly back, wondering how she had ever managed to get a boy like Shane to call her own.

And this was only the first date.

_xOx_

"So I'm finally going to find out where you're taking me?" Mitchie asked.

Shane was holding his hands over her eyes, adjusting their position and refusing to answer any of her questions. She could feel a few goose bumps on her bare legs and was also conscious that the ground seemed to be shifting under her feet. Perhaps it was just a side effect of the shoes Peggy and Ella had forced her into. She didn't care if they gave her an extra inch, she would have been happier in a pair of cheap flats. Shane didn't notice her worries, he was too busy making sure that her vision was completely obscured.

"Shane, please let me see! The suspense is killing me!"

Shane chuckled and finally twitched his fingers. Mitchie smiled in anticipation and felt Shane's hands leave her face.

It took her eyes a second to adjust, but as soon as she had seen the scene in front of her, she gasped.

The young couple were standing on a pontoon, hence the odd floating feeling that Mitchie had been experiencing. Directly in front of them was an unmarked white boat, lit by only one light and many carefully placed candles. The spotless deck held a small, round table with only two chairs. There was a pure white table cloth draped carefully over the flat surface and a single rose-red candle burning in the centre.

"Shane, I... wow..." was all Mitchie could breathe out as she allowed Shane to lead her on board.

"I didn't know what to do," Shane told her quietly. It was almost as if he was afraid of breaking the peaceful spell that had settled over them. "I wanted to find something that was special and that you would remember but I didn't want to do something that the press could report every detail of. So I thought, why not go a tiny bit overboard and take you out on my boat?"

"This is your boat?"

"Ya huh. When we first realised just how much money we had, we went through a phase where we had to buy everything that rich people supposedly owned. We brought cars, we paid for our parent's house, we hired a personal cook. I was the only one who went as far as a boat, though. I had it shipped down here especially for the occasion."

Mitchie didn't know what to say. Nobody had ever done something this thoughtful for her before. The longer she looked, the more she noticed. There were smaller versions of the candle on the table burning around the edge of the vessel, fitting perfectly between the polished handrail and the gleaming sides. Somebody had even sprinkled a few rose petals across the deck. Not many, just enough to be noticed as she looked around in absolute awe.

"Shall we sit?" Shane asked, gesturing to the vacant chairs. She nodded eagerly.

Shane, always the gentleman, pulled back her chair for her and made sure that she was comfortable before even glancing at his own seat. Once they were both seated, a set of footsteps alerted them to company and they turned to see a smartly dressed waiter standing politely to one side.

"I was wondering if I could get you anything to drink, Madam and Sir."

"A coke for me please, Simon." Shane gave the man a familiar grin and Mitchie guessed that he had catered more than this one event for the young pop star.

"And for you Madam?"

"Um..." she suddenly felt flustered. "The same as Shane, please."

"Of course Madam. I'll be back in just a moment."

The man, Simon, left again and Shane felt for Mitchie's hand under the table.

"There's no need to be afraid, you know. Simon won't bite."

**There's more to the date, I'm not done with it yet, but I feel so guilty for not updating in so long that I'm posting this now, before I fall asleep. The next half won't be as long but it should be up tomorrow. I'd love to hear what you thought and if you have any suggestions for the second part of the date then don't hesitate to tell me!**

****Spwarkle****

**PS – I lied. It's now after midnight so the second half should be up **_**today**_**. I hope.**


	15. Chapter 15

**Like I said, up today. I could have written it and had it up this morning, but the sun was shining AGAIN so I went out :)**

**And xWinniePoohx, I have on intention of burning down the boat, it would end up completely changing the direction of this story, which I don't want. But because you made me laugh, I'm dedicating this little chapter to you.**

"So I have something for you," Shane said softly. Mitchie looked up from the spaghetti she had been slurping and her cheeks reddened. She swallowed hurriedly.

"You mean something on top of all of this?"

"Yeah, but I didn't spend a penny on them, I promise."

"_Them_?"

Shane chuckled and reached under the table, lifting up a small, tissue-paper wrapped box. Mitchie frowned as she took it off of him and carefully removed the outer layer. She was left faced with a plain-looking white cardboard box. Completely and utterly befuddled, she lifted the lid and chuckled at the note inside.

_Mitch, _

_I know that you absolutely hate the heels Pegs forced on _

_you so I got you some others, some you_

_might actually like. _

_Cait_

Moving the note aside, she found a pair of dark purple shoes. They had reliable, rubber soles and were entirely flat, not a heel in sight. Sighing in relief, Mitchie pulled off her heels and slipped on the more comfortable shoes, tossing the unwanted ones aside. When she looked up again, Shane was staring intensely at her.

"What?" She giggled. "_What_?"

"Nothing. I was just thinking about how much I want to kiss you right now."

Mitchie smirked. "Who said that you can't?"

Smiling, Shane began to lean towards her, meeting her eager lips in the middle of the table. He pulled away seconds later, much to her dismay.

"Do you have a hair tie?"

"Yeah, there's one on my wrist, why?"

He gestured to where her hair was dangling above the tabletop, blowing dangerously close to the open flame of the candle.

"I think that your hair catching on fire would really ruin the mood."

She chuckled as she slipped the black band around her long locks, wrapping her hair into a scruffy knot at the back of her neck. "Peggy is going to kill me for messing up my hair."

Shane shrugged. "She'll have to get through me first."

"Oh, will she, Mr Grey?" He nodded. "And what if I don't want her to? What if I don't want to see you hurt for me?"

"It's tough luck, we've got to get even."

"Excuse me?"

Shane sighed. "On your birthday, at the concert, you got injured. You almost died for me, Mitchie, and I can't let that go. I know that you'll tell me to just forget about it, that it wasn't my fault, but I feel like it was. You were at the concert to see me and my brothers perform and because of that you ended up in the emergency ward in a hospital. On your birthday."

"Nobody can blame you, Shane. The fact that I got crushed by a huge chunk of falling concrete was my fault, I should have moved out of the way faster. You can't blame yourself for my slow reactions, nobody can. If anything, it's Cait, Peggy and Ells's fault for buying me the stupid front row tickets in the first place."

"Stupid?"

"In some ways. I would probably not have been as badly injured if it weren't for those tickets, but then-."

"You wouldn't have met me either." Shane finished for her, kissing her softly again. "I'm going to miss this when I go home again. I've got to be gone by tomorrow lunchtime so that we can go on some three day tour, then we have four weeks to record our next studio album, I don't know when I'm going to see you again."

"As long as you don't forget about me, I don't mind."

"I could never forget about you, Mitchie Torres."

Mitchie gave a small smile and slowly stood up, leaving her half eaten meal behind and wandering to lean on the edge of the boat. She crowed her legs in the soothing shoes and felt Shane approach her from behind moments later, slipping his hands around her waist.

"I never thought that I would have such a caring boyfriend," Mitchie murmured "I never thought I would meet a man who would set up dinner on his private little ship for our wedding, let alone the first date. To be honest, I never thought that I would get to meet you, even. You're the best boyfriend I've ever had, Shane Grey."

"I'm also the only one," he reminded her lightly, squeezing her sides tenderly.

Mitchie turned around so that she was facing him, her back pressed against the rim of the barrier. Shane stared at her, his eyes glistening in the candlelight. "I'm glad that you could be my first boyfriend."

"I'm glad I could have the honour."

"I'm glad I had the chance to get to know you."

"I'm glad for the earthquake."

She smacked his chest playfully. "That's just taking it too far." But then she kissed him, and all was forgiven.

**Like I said at the beginning, it's short. It was supposed to be on the end of the last chapter but I really couldn't be bothered to get it out of my head and onto the computer yesterday.**

**Can you review, please? This is currently on 95 reviews and it would mean the world to me if it got to 100 on this chapter!**

****Spwarkle****


	16. Chapter 16

**This is for Disneysara7771 who got me to 100 reviews for the first time ever and also ****Ardiente Deseo****, ****sweetcinnamonxoxo****and ****zteffie who got me to the 103 I'm at currently.**

**Thank you so much everyone who's reviewed!**

"I swear that if Mitchie tells me once more how romantic the candles made it, I am going to thump her."

"I know how you feel," Nate paused as he opened the door in front of him, allowing Caitlyn through first. "Shane will not shut up about how gorgeous she looked in that dress. I've not seen it, but I bet I could draw a perfect picture of it just from the things he's been mumbling about."

As she reached her locker, Caitlyn paused. Her exasperated expression switched to a confused one and she turned to face Nate,

"Just explain to me why exactly you dragged me to school half an hour early. I meant to ask when you turned up for breakfast, but I didn't."

Nate chuckled. "I wanted to see your school. I was just being nosey, to be honest. You and Mitchie are always going on about things that happen here and I wanted to look around when there weren't thousands of teenage girls around."

"You wanted to see my school?" Nate nodded. "Seriously? It's just a school. Just like any other school in the world, probably identical to the school that you went to."

Nate sighed. "I didn't go to High School."

"You didn't?"

"Well I did, but only for about a week. It was the summer after we got discovered at Camp Rock and we were whisked off to LA as soon as possible. We were signed and from then on I was home tutored."

"All the way through your High School career?" Caitlyn couldn't help but grimace as she opened her locker. As much as she complained about school, she couldn't imagine living life without it. Her school career was almost over, there were only a few months left until she was forced out into the big bad world on her own. High School had shaped her into the person she was today and without it, she didn't know what sort of person she would be.

"At the time I thought it was really cool," Nate admitted. "I thought that I was pretty awesome for not having to go to school ever again. But now... I don't know. I missed out on so much. Maybe it would have been a different person standing in front of you right now if I'd stayed at school."

"Or maybe, just maybe, you wouldn't have been standing in front of me at all. Did you think of that? If you hadn't been tutored privately then you wouldn't have been able to do so many tours. You probably wouldn't be so famous and I might never have been to see you in concert. When the earthquake happened, I would have been sitting at home, totally alone and completely bored."

"We would never have met..." Nate half-whispered. His face settled into a deadly serious expression and he suddenly drew Caitlyn in for a hug. "I'm glad I met you Caitlyn, although the circumstances could have been a bit better."

Caitlyn felt his fingers trace the scar on her lower back though her t-shirt and shivered involuntarily. "I'm lucky to have a best friend like you, Nate." She muttered, pulling slowly out of the hug as another thought occurred to her. "So how have you graduated High School already? You should still be working towards it, shouldn't you?"

"I worked through the summer," Nate explained. "While we were on summer tours I would still get tutored. It cut about a year off of my education."

"That's not very fair." Caitlyn scowled. "You've finished your education, probably with flying colours, and you're touring the country, while I'm stuck here learning five days a week."

"Caity, remember just a few months ago when you had almost a full month off of school?"

"Okay, fine. Maybe I've had a little bit of less time at school than some people, but I would have worked through the summer if it meant leaving this place a year early."

Nate rolled his eyes, knowing full well that Caitlyn would barely have managed one day of work during her summer. He could read her like a book, he knew everything that there was to know about her. The fact that she enjoyed the holidays more than any other time of year was something he had picked up on instantly.

"Spiral staircase or normal staircase?"

Nate frowned at the question but answered under Caitlyn persistent gaze. "Um... spiral. They're way more fun. You can get dizzy just by walking down them."

"Yeah but they make you sick and they're more dangerous. How can you think that spirals are better?"

"Why'd you bother asking if you were already sure of your answer?"

"Because I wanted to see what you thought. I was just wondering."

"Right, whatever you say."

Footsteps from the far end of the corridor alerted the two that somebody was coming and Nate suddenly looked mildly terrified. Caitlyn reached over his shoulder and pulled up the hood on the jumper he had forgotten that he was wearing.

"Hoodies really aren't your thing," she told him, leaning her head slightly to the left. "You look kind of stupid."

Nate pulled a face, poking his tongue out at her. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a girl headed rapidly towards them. He didn't dare turn to get a better look, he continued his light conversation with Caitlyn until the girl suddenly stopped right behind him.

"Nice new look, Nate. I don't think it really works though."

"Mitchie?"

She grinned "Who else would be at school this early and just happen to wander down this corridor? Caitlyn texted me."

"Because I was here?"

Mitchie nodded and Nate couldn't help but notice Caitlyn's faint blush.

_xOx_

"Caitlyn, Nate's at the door!" Madeline's voice floated up the stairs and she turned back to the young man at the door with a soft smile. "Shouldn't you be on tour or something at the moment?"

"Yeah, we are," he told her. "But we had another few days off and Shane was coming down to see Mitch so I hopped on the plane with him. I've got something I need to talk to Caitlyn about." His teeth fastened onto his bottom lip.

"Nothing _too _serious, I hope?" Madeline teased. She could hear Caitlyn's footsteps on the stairs now.

"No, nothing too serious Mrs Gel- Madeline." Nate smiled at the woman just as Caitlyn flew around the corner.

"Hey Nate! I thought you'd have gone back by now!"

"So did I." He admitted. "Shane decided that he had to take Mitchie on one last date so we're staying for a few more hours. We should get back just in time for the sound check tomorrow morning."

"Cool."

"Listen, Cait, do you want to go out for dinner or something? I don't think we'll be allowed to visit during our breaks for another month or so and..."

Caitlyn smiled. "Sure. I'm in. Just give me two seconds to go find some money and I'll-."

"It's all good, Cait. I'm paying. I can afford it, you know."

"Yes, I know. But if you're sure then I'll just go tell my Mum where I'm going."

"Okay, I'll wait here."

Caitlyn disappeared again, flying into the kitchen to speak to her parents, and Nate caught sight of a picture hanging on the wall. He had never noticed it before, not one single time out of the many he had visited had he seen the framed photograph.

It was a shot of two girls, no older than seven or eight, bobbing around in Caitlyn's swimming pool, giggling and splashing each other playfully. One of the girls was clearly Caitlyn, her hair was an instant giveaway. The second one appeared at a closer glance to be Mitchie, looking much less civilised than she had since Nate had known her, her hair cut jaggedly in line with her neck, huge chunks apparently missing from small areas.

"We were playing hairdressers," Caitlyn said from behind him. "Needless to say we got a bit carried away. Mitchie tried to do the same to mine but it's so thick and bushy that you couldn't notice."

"I think your hair's perfect." Nate winced. He hadn't meant to say that. He scanned Caitlyn for any visible reaction but her facial expression and posture remained exactly the same.

But apparently Caitlyn had noticed. She was flattered. If Nate was telling the truth, which she sincerely hoped he was, he thought her hair was perfect. If he liked that much of her, then maybe he could really, truly like her as her true self.

But why did it even matter. She didn't like him, did she?

_xOx_

"If I wasn't so stuffed," Caitlyn rubbed her stomach to emphasise her point. "I would have to have another one of those."

"What, burgers or sundaes?" Nate asked, deliberately ignoring the gaze of the girl across the room.

"Both! This place does the best food I've ever tasted, and I've tasted a lot of food. How did I never find this place before?"

"Well, don't take this the wrong way, but I think it's kind of out of your league. I don't mean that cruelly, it's just that I don't expect your parents would ever have taken you anywhere that cost this much. Unless you're rather well off, somewhere like this makes a sizeable hole in your wallet."

"Yes, I'd rather not know what this evening has cost you, Nate. Was there really any purpose to it at all?"

Nate sighed to himself. If he didn't do it now, while he had the courage, he would possibly never be brave enough to admit the truth. He knew this was the moment, he just didn't know if he was strong enough to fulfil it,

"Caity, I... I brought you here for a reason tonight. Other than to waste money on food, that is." Caitlyn didn't speak, but the look she was giving him gave him the courage to continue. "The thing is, Caity, I really, really like you. Like _really._ In a more than friends way,"

There was deadly silence for a heartbeat. "Oh. I don't... I don't know what to say to that." The smile on Caitlyn's face was one he had never encountered before. It was definitely happy, he convinced himself, it was just the way in which she was pleased he was uncertain about.

"I guess a good place to start would be 'I like you too'?" He suggested.

**For all you Naitlyn fans out there XD**

**Sorry about the long wait and the short chapter. I have a maths GCSE (big, huge, career changing exams) in just over a month so the homework is being piled on. It's also the first one my year have done so they're making a hug thing of it. **

**I've been planning this chapter for ages and it might have been a bit better if it wasn't for the homework. I'll try and squeeze in another update before the end of next week, but no promises.**

****Spwarkle** **


	17. Chapter 17

**Just over two weeks this time! Sorry again! Revision, sleep, food, my social life and just plain laziness have been my life since I last posted and I didn't realise how long it had been! But today, out of the blue, I had two more people review (Thank you!) so I've done this for all of you. =D**

"What do you mean, she _walked out_?"

Mitchie was absolutely abashed. She was sitting in Shane's lap, bolt upright and staring at Nate with wide eyes. She had not moved since her body had locked into this position two minutes ago and her mouth had only moved to ask the question burning on her mind.

"I mean exactly that..." Nate sighed. "Like I said, I told her I liked her as more than a friend. She said that she didn't know what to say to that and I told her that telling me she liked me too might be a good place to start. Then, she stood up and left."

Shane and Jason shared a worried look as they watched their younger brother wander across the room and collapse on top of the hotel bed, eyes closed. Nobody spoke for a long while. The brothers were at a loss for words and Mitchie was deep in thought.

She finally relaxed and even gave a small smile as she slipped off of Shane's lap and crossed the room. She placed her hand on Nate's shoulder and waited for him to open one eye and stare at her.

"I need you to tell me exactly what happened. Tell me exactly what she said and did before she left."

Nate opened and closed his mouth a few times before turning his head away. Mitchie stayed still for a few moments and her face, which had so recently smiled, was graced with a frown.

"Nate, I can't help you and Cait get together if I don't know what happened!"

"What is there to say, Mitch?" Nate suddenly snapped. "I really like her, like really, _really _like her. She obviously doesn't feel the same way, so why bother? I'll just avoid her for a few months and then see if we can be friends again... then."

"No, that's not fair on you! I _know _she likes you as much as you like her! She went red every time we teased her about you; she was constantly talking about you, or talking _to_ you. Either way, she's liked you since you first met her back on my birthday. That was almost six months ago. Maybe she'd given up on you and she was just shocked. Maybe she didn't know how to react. Maybe she-." Mitchie suddenly smiled again, a bright smile that was full of life.

"What?" Nate asked. He allowed himself to be almost hopeful. Almost, but not quite.

"You said that she smiled when you told her that you liked her. Just now, when you were telling us, you said it was an odd smile. Can you explain to me what it looked like?"

"Well... it looked almost like she was happy... but scared. Scared of being happy. It was really odd. It wasn't something I could ever have imagined Cait doing." Nate sighed and shook his head. "Not that it really matters anymore. If I ever see her face again then I'll be completely surprised."

Mitchie rubbed the bridge of her nose exasperatedly. "Would you stop saying that? I need to go and talk to Cait, I'll be back in a bit."

Mitchie gave Shane a quick peck on the lips, hugged Jason goodbye and then whipped out her phone. She was texting before she even reached the door.

"Actually, I take that back. I'll be call you tomorrow, Shane."

And she was gone.

_xOx_

The wind outside was cold and brisk, whipping cruelly around Caitlyn's legs as she rocked gently back and forth. The swing underneath her creaked loudly and on any other night she would have been complaining about the sound hurting her ears to whoever she was with.

But not tonight. Tonight, she was alone. She had realised before she even got home that she needed time to think, managing to slip inside, change into some more comfortable clothing and leave again without answering her parents' many questions. Her feet had found their own way here, to the park that held so many childhood memories. She had loved this place when she was younger; she had visited it with Mitchie almost every day after school.

Once she had hit her teenage years, it had become less of an area to play on the swings and more of an area to hang out in. The last time she had dropped down the fireman's pole or run up the slide just for fun was when she was eleven. Nowadays, it was the place she came to think. Somewhere that she was guaranteed privacy and space, somewhere that nobody else came to after the sun had set.

She had needed her own space to sit and clear her mind after the evening out with Nate. Now, an hour later, when she had been given time to consider her actions, she felt incredibly guilty. Nate had obviously been incredibly nervous to admit that he liked her and she had simply walked out on him.

It wasn't that she didn't feel the same way – quite the opposite. Since New Year, Caitlyn had been confused about her feelings for her friend. She had felt something definitely more than just_ friendship _yet she didn't know if it was established enough to give a name to. Was it strong enough to qualify as a crush? Was it something more?

Caitlyn groaned, hanging her head down and closing her eyes in frustration. A part of her wished she could go back in time to the end of the meal and, instead of leaving without giving Nate an answer, tell him how confused she was. If there was one thing she was sure of, it was that Nate would never force her into a relationship that she wasn't ready for. However he felt, the young man would never enter a relationship with Caitlyn if he wasn't sure that she was happy with it. She knew that and she respected it.

Distantly, she became aware of footsteps. She tucked her hair behind her ear and turned her face over her shoulder. Mitchie was leaning against the bottom of the climbing frame, watching with a serious expression. Caitlyn sighed and turned away again, shaking her head.

When Mitchie spoke seconds later, her voice was startlingly close.

"Cait, you've got to talk about it sometime."

"Why bother? I bet you've already heard everything from Nate."

"Yeah. I've heard that he told you he liked you and _you _walked out without saying a word."

"I said a few words..." Caitlyn mumbled.

"Telling him you don't know what to say doesn't count." Mitchie slipped passed her friend and sat down on the free swing. "Why did you leave, Cait? You like him, it's painfully obvious. I can see it, Shane can see it, even Ella can see it!"

"Well I can't!" Caitlyn's voice broke through the silent night. "I have no idea how I feel about Nate, that's why I left!" She ran a hand through her hair. "I've been trying to figure it out ever since I realised he was more than a friend. I still don't know what it is! How am I supposed to know what to do?"

Caitlyn looked absolutely terrified. Her eyes were red but not a single tear fell, her jaw was tight and her entire facial structure appeared panicked. Mitchie reached out to place a hand on Caitlyn's shoulder.

"Caitlyn, you're over thinking it. It's simple: you either like him or you don't. Your not the sort of girl who makes this decision very often, I know you. When was the last time you had to tell a guy you liked him, huh? Don't even answer, you've not done it, have you? You're Caitlyn Gellar, you've not had a serious boyfriend. _You_, Miss Gellar, are afraid. You're worried about taking that leap, you don't think you're ready for it."

"Mitch, I don't-."  
"I'm going to ask you a question in a second, and I want you to answer it with the first thing that pops into your mind, okay?"

"Okay..." Caitlyn frowned.

"Alright. Do you like Nate?"

"Yeah."

Mitchie smiled as Caitlyn gasped, throwing her hands over her mouth. The two girls shared a prolonged look before Mitchie squealed and leapt to her feet.

"Oh My Gosh, _yes_! Now that you've admitted it, we can go on double dates and everything! We can finally start referring to Naitlyn as being real and not a figment of our imaginations! We can do all that stuff you see the couples on television doing, we'll be, like, the happiest people _ever_!"

Caitlyn held up her hand. "Woah, Mitch, wait up a second. I haven't even told Nate yet. He might have changed his mind and decided that he doesn't want me after all. Maybe he's like me but in reverse. I was sure I didn't like him, but now I do. Maybe he was sure he liked me and now he does-."

"Oh give it a rest! Nate is lying in his hotel room right now almost in tears, I swear. The last I saw of him, he was about ready to go into depression. There is no way that in the last half hour he has changed his mind and moved on."

"Really?"

"Really."

Caitlyn suddenly beamed, her eyes lighting up. She spun slightly to the left and pushed herself backwards, heaving the swing into motion. Laughing like the child she had once been, she swung herself higher and higher, throwing her head backwards. As she reached the climax of her swing, she threw herself off, landing on the ground without a single jolt.

"What was that about?" Mitchie asked, jogging the few feet between them.

"I just..." Caitlyn sighed happily. "I felt so happy after I finally admitted that to myself... I felt like a little kid again. I wanted to act as carefree as I felt and so... I did. Not that it really did anything except waste time... Now come on! I want to go and see Nate before my parents make me go home!"

As the girls ran through the park, heading towards the hotel that the three brothers were staying in, Mitchie babbled non-stop about the adventures they could have altogether. She tried to imagine Caitlyn and Nate's first date, where he would take her, but all she could decide on was that it wouldn't be the same as the one she had had with Shane.

"Mitchie, we've barely run a mile," Caitlyn groaned as she bent over outside the hotel, breathing deeply. "How on earth did you manage to talk that much in such a short distance?"

"Hey, I didn't talk all _that _much!" Mitchie protested. "And anyway, we didn't get to the best bit. Do you think Nate will kiss you tonight? Are you looking forward to it? Do you think he's a good kisser? What do you think it'll be-?"

"Wait, stop right there." Caitlyn stared at Mitchie. "I'm not ready to kiss anybody yet. I've never even had a boyfriend before, as you so rudely pointed out earlier. I'm not ready to start making out with a boy who is technically still only my best friend."

"You're not?"

"Not, Mitch, I'm not. In case you hadn't noticed, I'm not you. I'm not as self confident as you are."

Mitchie pushed open the hotel doors without replying and the girls stepped inside. An elderly gentleman stepped out of an elevator just as they reached it and they leapt inside. Caitlyn's smile was no longer so prominent, she was worrying about kissing. Would Nate really expect her to kiss him tonight? She wasn't mentally prepared for it. She was sure Nate would be a fantastic kisser, not that she would have much to compare him against, and she was certain she would enjoy it, it just wasn't something she was sure about doing.

The automated voice above her head told her that they were on the right floor and she followed Mitchie out into the carpeted hallway. The boys' room was almost directly across from them and Mitchie ran to knock on it.

"Shane, babe, it's me. Can you and Jase come out here for a sec?"

"Babe?" Caitlyn raised an eyebrow and Mitchie turned away with a blush. Shane and Jason appeared moments later.

"Caitlyn!" Shane had the sense to keep his voice down. "What're you doing here?"

"Coming to talk to Nate." Caitlyn bit her lip. "I wanted to tell him I feel the same way."

"Yay!" Jason rushed forwards, pulling Caitlyn into a tight hug. "Finally! He's all mopey at the moment, he'll finally shut up talking about how he wished you were his if you get together."

Caitlyn smiled as she felt her feet hit the floor again. "Jase, I thought you'd stayed with the concert in wherever it was."  
"I had, but I was lonely so I booked a flight. I got here in the middle of your disaster date."

"Jason!" Shane and Mitchie hissed together.

"It's okay guys," Caitlyn reached for the door handle. "Can someone unlock it for me? I'm going in now, while I still can."

Jason obliged, swiping a nondescript plastic card through the reader and pushing the door open.

"Good luck." He hissed, pushing Caitlyn inside.

The hotel room was darker than the hallway and Caitlyn had to blink before she could take note of the figure sitting on the windowsill. He didn't respond to her presence, whether because he didn't know or didn't care that she was in the room, she wasn't too sure. She crept forwards, wondering if Nate had seen her enter the hotel, but a glance over his shoulder told her that this window looked down at the back of the hotel, not the front.

"Hey, Nate, do you think we could talk?" If she hadn't known there was nobody else in the room, she wouldn't have noticed herself speak. Nate jumped and turned to face her with a shell shocked expression.

"Caity?"

"Hey." Caitlyn chewed on the inside of her cheek for a few moments. Talking to Nate had never been this awkward before. Never.

"What are you doing her, Cait?"

"I wanted to talk to you. I wanted to... apologise for earlier. I shouldn't have just walked out. You obviously told me something important to you and that means a lot."

"Cait, you don't have to talk to me if you don't want. You obviously don't feel the same way."

Nate dropped onto the floor and began to cross the room but Caitlyn grabbed his arm and stopped him.

"That's where you're wrong. I _do _like you Nate. I really, honestly do. I just... I didn't know how to face up to me feelings when we were at that restaurant and I went the wimpy way, running away instead of confronting my fears. I feel the same way as you."

Nate stared at her in a deadly silence for a very long time. His eyes and expression gave no clue as to his thoughts, Caitlyn had no idea what was coming next until he finally spoke;

"You really like me? This isn't just because Mitchie made you feel bad for me?"

"No! Never! Nate, you are an extremely important person to me, I would never toy with your feelings in that way."

Nate looked delighted. He slipped his arms around Caitlyn's waist, drawing her closer and closer, leaning down towards her and she found herself doing the same.

Then she realised what was happening and pulled away.

"Look, Nate, don't take this the wrong way, but I'm not ready to kiss anybody just yet. You are far more than a friend to me and it's not you. I've never done this before. I'm not convinced that I'm strong enough to kiss you. Not right now, anyway. I just need a bit of time."

She watched Nate apprehensively, waiting tensely for him to shake his head and accuse her of leading him on, or something similar. To her surprise, Nate only smiled softly.

"That's fine. I will wait _years _if I have to. As long as I'm with you, I'll be happy."

"What makes you think we're official?" Caitlyn teased. "You haven't actually asked me yet."

"I didn't think I'd have to." Nate reached for her hand.

"Never assume anything, Nate."

"Fine. Caitlyn Gellar, will you be my girlfriend?"

"I don't know. Will I?"

"Caity!" Nate stomped his foot playfully and Caitlyn poked out her tongue.

"I guess I'll be your girlfriend, then, if I have to."

Caitlyn gave a laboured sigh. Nate squeezed her hand happily and pulled her towards the door.

"Come on, crazy. Let's get you home before your Mum starts to panic."

"Actually, I prefer Crazy Caity."

"Well, whatever you're called, you're mine. Am I right?"

"You are."

**This is one of the longest chapters I've written in ages. I'm so happy I've finally done it! However, it **_**is **_**almost eleven at night and I have school tomorrow. So, good night people!**

****Spwarkle****


	18. Chapter 18

**If I had realised how busy my life would be, I would have posted more when I could. I am **_**so **_**sorry!**

**In the last month, I have literally not had a free moment. I'm not sure how I've found time to sleep, to be honest. I had revision most nights for the test I did today and dance lessons twice as often as normal for the exam **_**next **_**Monday. When I wasn't revising or practising, I was playing with our two new kittens or visiting my aunt for the first time in three years.**

**I apologise profusely and promise that fanfiction now comes ahead of writing essays on Romeo and Juliet. Possibly...**

**This chapter was half written because of my stressing about the maths and half written because I'd planned it this way.**

Caitlyn and Mitchie hadn't spoken in three hours. They were sitting in the same room, with only one and other for company, but neither of them had enough time to break the silence. Caitlyn was frantically reading through a book, trying to take in as much as possible in the short amount of time she had left and Mitchie was tapping away on her calculator, scribbling down notes every few seconds. There simply wasn't time to talk. There was barely time to breathe.

It was three in the morning. In eight hours time, their exams began, exams they had forgotten the existence of until three days ago, when they had spiralled back to earth and heard Peggy's conversation. As wrapped up as they had been in Nate and Shane – even as Connect 3 performed in Florida night after night – they had forgotten that the end of the school year was coming round. Since Mitchie's birthday, school work had taken a backseat. They would do their homework carefully only if they found time and they took little part in extracurricular activities.

There was a gentle knock on the door but Caitlyn and Mitchie ignored it, focusing on the work and revision they were so busy with. Connie Torres entered the room despite this. The older woman had definitely not had a good night's sleep. She had bags under her eyes and was blinking herself awake every few seconds. She was carrying a tray of snacks and drinks in her trembling hand and placed them carefully on the end of Mitchie's desk.

"I know you need to revise, girls," she said softly. "But you need sleep too. Knowing all of this information won't be any help if you fall asleep on your test paper."

"Thanks Mum," Mitchie waved a hand vaguely, tossing her maths book aside and taking hold of a chunky paperback book entitled simply _Physics. _She opened it up to the first page and began to read.

"Mitchie, listen to me. And you too, Caitlyn." Connie received no response and sighed before taking the books out of their hands and holding them behind her back. Both girls gave indignant cries but neither had the energy to try and fight back. "If you don't sleep than you _will _fail these exams. They don't start until eleven, I will gladly drive you to school just before, but only if you go to sleep now. You only have English and Biology tomorrow, there is no need to revise for anything else. You'll be home by two, you can revise after that."  
"But Mum-!" Mitchie protested.

"No buts! Both of you, sleep now!" Connie backed towards the door, still holding the books. "But have a snack first, so you're not hungry."

"Fine. Thanks Connie."

Caitlyn dived for the biscuits as soon as Connie was gone, moving at a surprising pace for a girl who had barely slept in three days. She gobbled down several biscuits at the same time and then took a breather. Glancing back, she noticed Mitchie was already half asleep on her bed, dozing off.

"Oy, Mitch! Wake up! Try one of these." She flicked a chocolate cookie at her friend and it bounced off of her forehead, dropping onto the floor and rolling into the shadows under the bed frame.

"The monster's gonna get it now," Mitchie muttered sleepily. "Like he got snowdrop and huggly."  
"Who?"

"Snowgly and Hugdrop." Mumbled the sleepy girl.

"Um..." Caitlyn frowned. "Whatever you say, Mitch."  
As Mitchie quickly drifted off into a deep sleep, Caitlyn found herself becoming tired. She flicked off the light before throwing herself down onto the pile of cushions and beanbags that she had assembled the day before to nap on. She snuggled down under a blanket and wrapped her arms around herself, feeling her eyelids become heavy.

"Night." She whispered.

And in the back of her mind, she could almost hear Nate saying it back again.

_xOx_

Something very heavy woke Caitlyn up. The something had fallen on her stomach particularly hard and was now squirming around, trying and failing to get off of her.

"Do you always sleep on you back?" Mitchie asked. Caitlyn groaned and opened her eyes, wincing at the bright sunlight.

"Yeah."

"Why? Isn't it uncomfortable? I find it incredibly uncomfortable, sleeping on my back. Don't you? It's like sleeping on a horse's back. That would be painful. Or would it? Would it be painful without a saddle on the horse? I guess it would. Then again, maybe it wouldn't. I don't know. We should find out."  
"Mitchie..." Caitlyn rubbed sleep out of her eyes, regaining the ability to see clearly. Mitchie was crouching directly in front of her and, from the way her eyes were wide and bubbling, had drunk rather a lot of caffeine. "How much coffee have you had?"  
"Three mugs. Mum's big mugs. And two cokes. In Mum's big glasses."

"And it's only... what time is it?"

"Ten thirty."

Caitlyn nodded for a second before gasping and rocketing upwards. "Mitchie, we have to be at school in thirty minutes!"

"I know! I'm ready! And I got you out an outfit and packed your bag for you and everything."

"What time did you get up?" Caitlyn asked disbelievingly. The Mitchie she knew had enough trouble finding herself a pair of matching shoes before lunchtime. But then, she had never seen Mitchie on five doses of caffeine before.

"Half nine. Shane called to wish me good luck. I love him, did you know that?"

Caitlyn smirked. "You've never said that you _love _him before, actually. I guessed, but you've never said it."

"I haven't? Woopsy daisy!" Mitchie giggled. "Well I _do _love him, and I'm going to tell him next time I see him."

Frowning, Caitlyn took hold of Mitchie's smiling face with both hands. "Are you sure you're high on caffeine and not just drunk?"

"I'm sure! I've never had alcohol in my life!"

"You must have done at- never mind." Caitlyn clambered to her feet, seeing her own clothes folded neatly into place on top of Mitchie's bed. "I need to get ready, we've got to be there as soon as possible!"

"Oh yeah, we have! I forgot that! I'll go and find Mum and make sure she's ready. See you later, alligator."

Mitchie skipped out of the room and Caitlyn took a second to stare in bewilderment before spinning to her clothes and changing from yesterday's scruffy outfit to the much neater, school worthy one that Mitchie had picked out for today. She pulled on the black jeans and bright orange top, fixed her hair into a scruffy ponytail and danced down the stairs all within minutes, giving herself several minutes to drink the coffee that Connie had prepared for her.

As the two girls sat in the car on the way to school, Caitlyn felt her phone buzz in her pocket. She pulled it out and glanced at the screen. Her serious expression softened.

_Caity,_

_Good luck in your exam today, I'm sure you'll do fine!_

_Call me afterwards,_

_Nate xx_

"Aww!" Mitchie was leaning across the seat and had read the message as well. "Shane called me earlier. Aren't we lucky to have such lovely boyfriends?"

"Yes, we are." Caitlyn said softly.

In the front, Connie grinned at the reflection of her two favourite teenage girls reading Caitlyn's text. It seemed only yesterday that she had been driving them around in car seats, and now they were off to finish High School. She had every faith in them passing their tests and every faith that they had both chosen brilliant boyfriends.

"We're here girls," she said softly, discreetly wiping away a small tear. The two jumped, thanked her and leapt out of the car, running towards the main entrance as fast as they could. "Good luck." Connie whispered after their retreating forms.

Just before she closed the door behind her, Mitchie paused. She glanced over her shoulder and waved at her Mum, grinning happily before darting inside. Connie chuckled to herself. Mitchie was the perfect daughter, she couldn't have asked for anything more.

**Yet again, sorry about everything, including the length. There were a few important bits in here although some of them might not mean much to you at the moment.**

**I am exhausted, to be honest, so sorry if it's not my best work. Whoever knew that maths exams could tire you out? I'm going to bed, but hopefully I should be able to update more often, especially after my dance exam next week is over.**

**I know that Nate and Shane don't even appear in this, but I'll make it up to you next chapter, promise!**

**Reviews?**

****Spwarkle****


	19. Chapter 19

**Only 10 days this time! Be grateful! This chapter is mostly about the boys, but it's important too.**

"I know! How are you meant to choose between a goldfish and a cat?" Nate grinned at his laptop as he spoke, watching Caitlyn's thoughtful expression. He had been discussing this topic with her for a good half an hour and we pretty certain that Shane thought he had gone crazy.

"I s'pose you could have both..." Caitlyn mused.  
"Nope. The cat would eat the goldfish and then you would loose your temper at the cat!"

"It's so hard!" Caitlyn buried her head in her hands and Shane finally made a move from the bed he was sprawled across. He bounced across the room and knocked Nate off of the bed and onto the floor.

"Okay, listen to me, Cait. Goldfish are boring, they just make funny faces and eat. Cats are boring; they only stay with people for the free food and warm house. End of. Get a dog!"

"I can't get a dog," Caitlyn muttered. She leant slightly to one side, as if doing so might enable her to see what had happened to her boyfriend.

"Why not?"

"She's allergic to them!" Nate said loudly, clambering to his feet and nudging Shane out of the way angrily. "Now if you don't mind, I was having a private conversation with my girlfriend."

"No, you weren't. If it was private, you would have plugged in your headphones."

Nate gave a strangled cry. "Why am _I _sharing a room with you? Why can't you go and join Jason?"

"Because, little brother, you drew the short straw." Shane patted Nate strongly on the shoulder before waltzing across the hotel room and locking himself in the bathroom.

"Sorry about that, Caity."

"Don't worry about it." She cleared her throat. "Final decision: Fish or cat?"

"Erm... cat, I guess."

"Well I say fish. Whatever, I guess..."

There was a short silence. Nate watched Caitlyn through the camera as she tapped a few keys on her keyboard and frowned slightly at the screen, obviously not watching him anymore. She smiled softly and then clicked her mouse and refocused her eyes on him.

"What're you doing?" He asked curiously.

"My aunt sent me a gift voucher for my birthday and I was reading her message."

"Oh."

Nate began to silently panic. Caitlyn's birthday was in two days time and he had, until now, almost completely forgotten. He had tried to get her gift sorted weeks ago, but the tour schedule had been ridiculously busy and he rarely found time to talk to her like he was now, let alone pick out the perfect present. His brain kicked into gear and he scanned his mental inventory for something that Caitlyn might like.

"Nate, are you there?"

"Huh? What- oh, yeah. I'm here." He answered rather belatedly.

"What're you thinking about?"

"Just... stuff."

"Tell me."

"No, you don't need to worry about it."

"Nate!"

"Caitlyn!"

"Please?"

"Caity, don't worry. It's just tour stuff."

"Honestly? It's nothing important?"  
"No. It's nothing for you to worry about. At all."

"Promise?"

Nate crossed his fingers behind his back, where the camera couldn't see. "I promise."

"Alright then, I believe you." Caitlyn suddenly turned away from the camera. "Coming, Mum!" She spun back. "I've got to go. Tea is done and I've been putting it off for ages already."

"See you soon." Nate said softly.

"You too."

There was a moment of confusion, where Nate's laptop whirred loudly and the screen flashed bright white before settling back to it's normal colours and calming down. As soon as he was certain the video call was over, he turned to his older brother.

"Shane, I need to ask you a favour?"  
"Excuse me?"

"Don't make me say it again!"

"I'm sorry. I didn't hear you the first time, so I guess-."

"Fine! I need your help, Shane! Is that good enough?"  
"I suppose so. Explain what you need."

"Um..." Nate fidgeted uncomfortable under he serious stare Shane was giving him. "Well... it's Caity's birthday on Tuesday and I kind of forgot to get her a present and I have literally _no _idea what to get her."

"You forgot her birthday?" Nate nodded. "You idiot!"

"Thanks for that deeply encouraging support there, Shane."

"What? It's true! No guy should forget his girlfriend's birthday!"

"Shane, are you going to help or not?"

"Okay, okay!" Shane sprung off of his bed and grabbed a chair from the corner of the room. He slid it across so that it's back was facing Nate and then sat on it, resting his arms on the wooden back. "You know Cait better than I do, what sort of things does she like?"

"I don't know... food? Um, not typical girly stuff?"

"Does she have a necklace?"

"Every girl has a-."

"No, I mean, like, one she wears every day, one you've grown to recognise."

"No. Definitely not."

Nate could not remember ever seeing Caitlyn wear a necklace, except the occasional long, beaded one that matched an outfit. He was almost certain, however, that this wasn't the sort Shane meant. She didn't strike him as the sort of girl who would wear a pretty locket around her neck, or a cheap plastic love heart, but he was beginning to see where Shane was going.

"If you got her a necklace," Shane said eventually. "Would she wear it?"

"If it was the right sort of necklace, I guess so."

"In that case, Nate, leave it all to me."

"To you?"

"Yes, to me."

"Shane I-."  
"Leave it all to me!"

_xOx_

Shane was waiting impatiently for Mitchie to come online. He had been sitting, watching the screen, for a good fifteen minutes now and she had yet to appear. He may have logged on fourteen minutes earlier than they had planned to chat but he couldn't wait to hear from her. Having run her phone flat texting him the night before, she had been unable to text him all day and he desperately wanted to hear her voice, see her face.

Somewhere between lunchtime and now – Shane wasn't particularly good with timings – their manager had announced another weeks worth of touring that would be added to the end of their tour. That was yet another week he wouldn't be able to see Mitchie in person or hold her in his arms. He desperately wanted to see her again and tell her the one thing that had been bugging him since he left. But he couldn't tell her over the internet. He wanted to tell her in person and see her genuine reaction, not the reaction that her web cam managed to pick up.

Because, despite what he might say to his brothers, Shane Grey was in love with Mitchie Torres.

It sounded ridiculous, even to his own ears, but it was true. It was a terrifying, overpowering bit of knowledge, but at the same time it was comforting to know how comfortable he was in his own feelings. Mitchie was everything he could ever have wanted and more; she was kind and understanding, funny and sweet. She had a soft, sensitive side, but she could take a joke. She cared for him but she wasn't dependent on him. She was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen and she barely tried.

In short, she was perfect.

Shane sighed dreamily and then shook his head. It would not do for either of his brothers to realise he was in love. He didn't want them knowing before he had told Mitchie. At least then he would know whether or not she felt the same way.

Maybe he was being silly. He had known her less than a year - eight months next week, in fact - and had been dating her for an even shorter amount of time than that, but he had never felt this way about any girl before. He had dated – or been on dates with – countless girls, but they all faded into one. They were a blurry history: Mitchie was a crystal clear present and, hopefully, future. Every time he saw her, or heard her name, his heart leapt; he couldn't even think about her without smiling.

A small beep from his computer had him glancing down. Mitchie was online and was inviting him to a web chat. He clicked the accept button eagerly and then waited impatiently for the call to connect. When Mitchie's picture finally blurred into shape, he grinned.

"Hey Mitch,"

"Hi Shane!" She giggled excitedly.

"What're you so happy about?"

"We have our last exam tomorrow and I'm completely confident about it!"

"That's great! What's it on?"

"English."

"Well you're doing better than me then. I'm pretty sure I would fail an English exam."

"You should come and do it with us!"

"Much as I'd love to, I don't think the fans would be so happy about that."

"Ugh. When do you get off of tour again?"

"In um... five weeks."

"Five? I thought it was four?"

"It was. We're retouring the Tri-State area at the end."

"Oh." Mitchie looked slightly put down. "On the bright side, you'll... No, I can't think of a bright side."

"Don't worry. We're coming to see you as soon as it's over."

"No, don't. Go home and see your parents. You're always with us, I'm sure they want to see you sometimes too. Visit them before you come to see us."

"But Mitchie, I want to see you!"

"I'm sure your mum wants to see you too!"

"I guess." Shane didn't seem to agree with her idea in the slightest. "What if I came to see you for a week and then-."

"No!"

"Okay, okay. I'll go and see my family!"

"And take Nate with you."

"Speaking of which, would Caitlyn prefer a silver or gold?"

Mitchie blinked. "Is this random question day or something? I had Cait asking me if I wanted a goldfish or a cat, Ella asking if I would wear green to a funeral and now this."

"Well, Nate kind of forgot to get Caitlyn a present, he didn't have time around the our, and I said I'd sort it for him. So silver or gold?"

"Silver I guess. Gold seems a bit too much for Cait."  
"Silver it is, then." Somebody pounded on Shane's door and he heard a voice shout out,

"Shane, Nate and Jason want you to meet them in the lobby as soon as possible!"

He sighed. "I'm coming! Mitch, I've got to go, okay?"

"Yeah, that's fine."

"Talk to you soon, okay?"

"Bye Shane, love you,"

"Love you too."

As their own and one and others words hit their ears, they both froze and then blushed, catching eyes through the camera momentarily before smiling shyly. Mitchie waved timidly goodbye as the call disconnected and then Shane, grinning widely, turned and left the room.

**Chapter 19? I cannot believe how far this story has come! And how many reviews it's had in the previews 18 chapters! Thank you guys!**

**Oh yeah, my twoshot, The Truth Is A Lie, has been nominated under several categories in the Indie CR Awards. I was wondering if you could vote for it, because I love you guys? The links in my profile!**

****Spwarkle****


	20. Chapter 20

**Reminder to you all: the voting for the Indie CR Awards closes tomorrow, the 1****st**** July. You can still vote for The Truth Is A Lie at the link on my profile until then!**

Caitlyn couldn't for the life of her figure out why her alarm was going off. It was her _birthday _and she had finished school _yesterday _but it was still going, beeping loudly in her ear. She had bargained on sleeping in until lunchtime and could remember switching off her alarm clock the night before to stop exactly this happening.

Groaning, she swung out an arm to hit the snooze button, only to hit a much softer objects than she had expected. The object gave an indignant yell and then, to her complete and utter surprise, hit her back.

"What was that for?"

Caitlyn knew that voice. It was Mitchie's voice. What was Mitchie doing in her bedroom on the morning of her birthday? She then decided this was a stupid question, as she had done the same to Mitchie herself a few months ago.

"Morning Mitch." She mumbled. She stretched her arms above her head and opened her eyes. Mitchie was staring straight at her. "What?"

"Just wondering how you can be so calm. I mean, it's your birthday! You're nineteen years old now, Cait!"

"And your point is?"

"I... I don't really know." Mitchie frowned. "Anyway, you're ruining the mood. Get up, come downstairs. Madeline's cooking breakfast and it smells lush!"

Caitlyn unwillingly did what she was told, wrapping herself up in a thick white dressing gown and dreamily heading down the stairs. She could hear laughter in the kitchen and glanced through the door before she entered. She distinctly noticed a blonde head that she hadn't seen in a good few years.

"Charlene?"

"Cait!"

Caitlyn squealed and flew towards the girl, suddenly awake. They hugged in the middle of the room and then Caitlyn pulled away with a wide grin.

"Mitch, I'm guessing you've already been introduced, but this is Charlene."

"As in the Charlene you're always on about?"

"The very same."

Charlene was Caitlyn's cousin of sorts. She had been adopted by Madeline's sister when she was just six months old; her real mother had left her on the doorstep of an orphanage. To the best estimate of several doctors and nurses, Charlene had been born about three days before Caitlyn herself and the two girls had been incredibly close when they were younger. But Charlene and her adopted mother had moved away when the two girls were six and it had been a struggle for the girls to stay so close. Caitlyn hadn't seen Charlene for four years.

"What're you doing here?"

"I came to see you for your birthday!"

"Really? You came all this way just for my birthday?"  
"Yes, of course I did!"

Caitlyn hugged her cousin again. Charlene brought out a rarely visible sentimental side in Caitlyn and Mitchie found it rather sweet. Caitlyn was not the sort of girl who ran around hugging people and talking quickly in a high-pitched voice. It made a nice change.

"How long are you here for?"

"Three days. I have to leave after that because mum's taking me on holiday for a few weeks, somewhere hot, she says."

"Only three days?" Caitlyn looked truly upset.

"It was one at first, but I begged!"

The girls hugged again and Mitchie felt an odd emotion twang through her. She didn't like it when Charlene and Caitlyn hugged. As the cousins talked, it felt like they had forgotten Mitchie. She was usually the one chatting to Caitlyn but now that she was excluded from this conversation, she felt awkward. She didn't like it one bit. She wanted to push Charlene out of the way and move back into her usually spot.

She was jealous.

She frowned at this thought and shook it off. How could she be jealous? She had met Charlene less than five minutes ago, there was no way she could be jealous already, was there? Perhaps there was. She definitely hadn't taken to the blonde like she had always assumed she would.

For the next few minutes she watched thoughtfully. Caitlyn and Charlene were giggling and playing, talking non-stop and getting on like a house on fire. The more she saw them reacting with each other, the stronger the feeling in her chest got. When Charlene reached out and pulled Caitlyn's hair and both of them burst into laughter, Mitchie thrust herself out of her chair. The chair legs scraped across the tiled kitchen floor and she stormed out of the house without another word.

Inside, Caitlyn watched her go with a frown. What had upset her friend so much? Mitchie didn't loose her temper very often, but the look on her face had been absolutely livid. She pulled away from Charlene and scurried up the stairs, changing into the first outfit she saw and then hurrying back down again.

"I'll be back in a bit," she told her parents and cousin. Then, to their complete surprise, she left the house. Without eating breakfast or asking for a single present, the birthday girl had disappeared.

**Yes, I know that it's incredibly short. I'm sorry about that, but I wanted to get it up ASAP. My school is shut tomorrow because of the strikes but I have to be in anyway. I'm busy tomorrow evening, Friday evening, all of Saturday and most of Sunday, so I'm updating now for you guys.**

**There's still time to vote ;)**

****Spwarkle****


	21. Chapter 21

**I'm a finalist in the Indie CR Awards! Thank you for everyone that's voted so far, could you please, maybe, do it again? Tell me in a review that you have done and I'll send you a virtual ice-cream. Thank you guys! **

**The link is in my profile again!**

Mitchie had been locked in her room for all of five minutes when Caitlyn arrived. The younger girl had run almost the entire way home, sprinted up the stairs and slammed the door behind her. She was lying on the floor in rather an odd position, her arms extended at an awkward angle under the bed as she fumbled for something there.

"Mitchie I know you're in there!"

She jumped. Had Caitlyn followed her then? Mitchie had not allowed herself to think that she might be more important that _precious _Charlene and had expected Caitlyn to turn up in several hours, maybe not even until tomorrow.

"Mitch, come out!" Mitchie didn't respond. "What's wrong, Mitchie? Why did you leave?"

Mitchie sighed. Her fingers clamped around the object she had been searching for and she gave a saddened smile as she pulled it out and brushed the thick layer of dust off.

She hadn't played her guitar in years. It had been a hobby of hers as a child but she had been teased about it in her early teens and had thought she had grown out of it. But even when she hadn't played the instrument in months, it still help a place in her heart. It had retreated under her bed when she was about fifteen and she hadn't touched it since.

As she gently plucked a few simple chords, surprised that she could still remember anything, the hammering on her door ceased. Caitlyn pressed her ear to the hard wood and listened carefully as Mitchie began to mumble the words to her favourite song.

"_Sometimes you think you'll be fine by yourself_

_'Cause a dream is a wish that you make all alone_

_It's easy to feel like you don't need help_

_But it's harder to walk on your own_

_You'll change inside when you realize_

_The world comes to life and everything's bright_

_From beginning to end when you have a friend by your side_

_That helps you to find the beauty you are_

_When you open your heart and believe in the gift of a friend_

_The gift of a friend_

_Someone who knows when you're lost and you're scared_

_And there through the highs and the lows_

_Someone you can count on, someone who cares_

_Beside you wherever you'll go_

_You'll change inside when you realize_

_The world comes to life and everything's bright_

_From beginning to end when you have a friend by your side_

_That helps you to find the beauty you are_

_When you open your heart and believe in the gift of a friend_

_And when your hope crashes down_

_Shattering to the ground you, you feel all alone_

_When you don't know which way to go_

_And there's no signs leading you home, you're not alone_

_The world comes to life and everything's bright_

_From beginning to end when you have a friend by your side_

_That helps you to find the beauty you are_

_When you open your heart and believe in_

_When you believe in, when believe in the gift of a friend."_

Caitlyn was stunned. She hadn't _ever _heard Mitchie sing like that before. She had been a decent singer as a child, but the raw emotion in her voice as she had sung now was unbelievable. Once she had settled into the music, she had taken off, flying through the song with more power than Caitlyn thought she possessed.

"Cait?" Called Mitchie tentatively. "Are you still there?"

"Y-yeah, I'm here."

"Good." The door swung open and Mitchie was standing in front of her, smiling sheepishly.

"Mitch, I-."

"I'm sorry Caitlyn."

"What for?"

"For- I... I was jealous. I was jealous of you and Charlene and how close you were despite the fact you haven't been together in years. To be honest, I was worried that I might loose you. I thought that you might realise Charlene was a better friend than me."

"I would never do that Mitchie!"

"I- I know." Mitchie wiped a tear out of the corner of her eye. "I realised that just now. You're my best friend, I can count on you for anything and everything, I know I don't have to doubt you, I just.. I don't know. But I realised that Charlene is leaving in the near future so if you want to spend time with her, I'm fine with that. You don't get to see her enough."

"Mitchie, I'm not going to spend all my time with Charlie. She's amazing and I love her, but you're better. You know more about me that she ever did; she doesn't even know I'm dating Nate. You're my _best friend _Mitchie, and you have an amazing singing voice. Did you know that?"

"I'm not that good!" Mitchie cried out, blushing.

"Yes, you are. You'll never believe me, so I won't even try, but you have the best voice I've ever heard."

"No, I don't."

"You do. Now, do you mind of we have this argument on the way back to my house? My Mum's cooking and I want breakfast!"

"Well, I suppose I could come back."

"Yes! C'mon." Caitlyn hooked her arm through Mitchie's. "So, bestie, what did you get me for my birthday?"

"Not telling. It's at your house, you can wait and see."

"But it's my birthday!"

"What's that supposed to mean?"  
"Doesn't it give me special privileges or something?"

"No, it doesn't,"

"Oh, but-."

Mitchie chuckled. They were walking up the middle of the street, arm in arm, playing around and joking. She had already regained the relaxed, calm feeling she had when she was with Caitlyn, being herself, not worrying about upholding an image.

"And it's only ten in the morning." She muttered under her breath.

"Huh?"

"Oh, don't worry!"

**Next chapter: Caitlyn's Birthday part 3! I was going to finish her birthday in this chapter tonight but I'm so tired that I'm not going to. **

**Let me know if you've voted, I'll love you forever! (I don't mean that literally)**

****Spwarkle****


	22. Chapter 22

**I've had a storm of reviews on various stories lately and that encouraged me to write this chapter. I'm afraid I've been so busy reading fanfictions lately that I never really got around to writing my own. :-S**

"So Cait, I'm surprised you haven't asked for your present from Nate yet."

Caitlyn looked up from what was left of her burger and grinned as she saw Mitchie approaching. Knowing that the comment obviously had a purpose, she scanned the vicinity for a sight of the gift. She wasn't successful.

"D'you know where it is?"

"Yeah, I do. Or at least I think I do, I could be wrong. If I am then I don't know how, but unless your present can suddenly walk, it should still be there. Or maybe it can fly like-"

Caitlyn cut her off. "Where is it?"

"Well, it's kind of a long story." Mitchie was struggling not to laugh and judging by the expression on Caitlyn's face, she was pretty certain that her teasing was working.

"I don't want to hear the story, just tell me where it is."

"Right now," Mitchie said with a smirk. "It's in your room."

Caitlyn raised an eyebrow. The two girls, Peggy, Ella, Charlene and Caitlyn's parents had been sitting in the garden for a good four hours and none of them had been inside her house, which meant either Mitchie had put the gift there before they came out, or somebody else had entered the house to do so at some point.

Caitlyn placed her plate on the floor and walked cautiously into the house, almost afraid of somebody jumping out on her. She knew Mitchie was following behind her and was pretty certain that she could hear Charlene and Ella's heels clicking on the laminated floor as well. She didn't bother to glance back, excited as she was to see the present from Nate.

She thought back through the day. If she was honest with herself, she had barely given any thought to Nate's present at all. She knew fully well that he had forgotten it was her birthday – she had _seen_ the way he reacted when she mentioned it and his acting had not fooled her at all – and had not expected him to send much in the way of a present at all. The fact that she had an audience following to see her find this mysterious gift made her even more confused.

As she reached her bedroom door, she paused and swung around. Everyone was standing behind her, except her dad, who she could hear grunting up the stairs behind everyone else.

"What is it? Why is everyone following me?"

Charlene hesitated. "Nobody know what this present is, Cait. Or at least, that's what I've been told."

"Nobody?"

"No." Peggy shook her head.

"The boys wouldn't tell us what it was when we asked." Ella added with an innocent smile. Charlene was the only one who reacted, frowning slightly at the pointless statement.

Sighing, Caitlyn turned back to her door and kicked it lightly with her foot. She almost ran inside in her sudden excitement, bouncing into the middle of the room. She turned around slowly.

There was nothing there.

Frowning, she looked again, skimming every inch of the room with her sharp eyes until she finally saw the tiny little box sitting on her bed. It was small enough to fit into the palm of her hand, a perfect cube, wrapped in blue and pink striped wrapping paper and tied with a big pink bow. There was a label hanging over one side and she opened it with a soft smile.

_Cait,_

_I'm pretty sure this is going to be wrapped in glittery paper or something, which I apologise for now, but I couldn't choose the colour. I'm so sorry I can't be there for your birthday, if there was anything I could do to get there, I would do it, trust me._

_Happy birthday, Cait._

_Yours,_

_Nate_

It was printed on glossy paper and typed in an elegant script. They were evidently Nate's own words; Caitlyn could almost imagine him saying them to her face. She tore the note off carefully and laid it to one side before picking up the little box in one hand and pulling on the end of the bow. The ribbon came undone and the paper fell away to reveal a plain white box. Intrigued, she opened it.

Inside the box was a smaller, fabric case and even at a glance, Caitlyn knew exactly what it was. It was a jewellery box. A _jewellery _box. Nate knew she didn't wear jewellery. She changed her earrings about once a month and she never wore necklaces or bracelets. It wasn't that she particularly disliked jewellery, but she had never seen the point of it. It took up too much time to find accessories that matched clothes, it was too complicated to keep track of hundreds of heart shaped necklaces that looked the same.

She ever bothered. Nate knew that, so what on _earth _had he got her? Deciding that there was only one way to find out, she opened the box.

Inside was the most beautiful necklace she had ever seen. It was a simple silver locket, oval shaped and no larger than the top of her littlest finger. The front shone in the light from her window and she could almost see her reflection in the polished metal. There was a intricate letter C engraved on one side and as she flipped it in her hands, she found the letter N on the other.

Caitlyn had never thought that a necklace would make her cry, but she was wrong. She popped open the little door and found two tiny little photos inside, one of her grinning cheekily, and the other of Nate, smiling happily. She closed it carefully and looked closer at the letters. They were full of tiny swirls and minute patterns, they twisted and curled in the most beautiful routes Caitlyn had ever seen.

Wiping a tear from the corner of her eye, Caitlyn turned around to show the necklace to her friends. Mitchie gasped and reached forwards, running the silver chain lightly through her fingers.

"Cait, it's beautiful."

"I know." Caitlyn voice sounded oddly muffled and she cleared her throat in partial embarrassment.

"Put it on, poppet," John told his daughter. He shared a look with his wife and then Madeline wrapped her arm around his waist.

"How come you never got a pretty necklace for me, hey John?" She teased.

"I didn't need to," her husband responded. "I got you a sparkly diamond engagement ring instead."

Madeline huffed and pouted. Caitlyn smiled at her parents and then turned to Mitchie.

"Can you help me?"

"Sure."

Caitlyn handed the necklace carefully to her best friend and then wrapped her fingers around her hair, twisting it to one side so that Mitchie could place the necklace around her neck and click it closed at the back. As soon as it was secure, Caitlyn let her curls drop and bounded to her mirror. The locket hung perfectly just below her collar bone, the C facing outwards.

"You look gorgeous, Caity-lyn." John said, placing a hand on her shoulder. Caitlyn spun around, a dangerous look in her eye.

"Don't call me Caity-lyn." She growled. Her cheeks were flushed with embarrassment. Charlene was laughing silently.

"Sorry hun, habit."

"Habit? Dad, I haven't let you call me that since I was six, I'm nineteen today. How is that habit?"

"Um..."

Mitchie chuckled as Caitlyn scolded her father. Everything was back to normal, but as the necklace bouncing off of Caitlyn's neck as she bickered with her father proved, even the toughest girls could have their soft moments. All they needed to do was meet the right person and Mitchie had a sneaky suspicion that Caitlyn had done just that.

**Next chapter will hopefully be longer and will, I promise, move on from Caitlyn's tediously long birthday. **

**We're coming to the end of Upheaval of the Heart I'm afraid, so my question to you guys is, do you want a sequel or would you rather I just ended the story?**

**Let me know, please! And that you to everyone who is reviewing, it really makes my day when I see a review in my inbox!**

****Spwarkle****


	23. Chapter 23

**I'm really sorry guys, for two things. First of all, the really long wait since I last updated this. I've started all my GCSE work at school and that means more homework than I've ever had before. I feel like schoolwork is stalking me, or something. And this last week, I've been out enjoying the really, really, really hot weather that was suddenly sprung on us here in England.**

**The second apology is something that almost makes me cry. I'm not going to be working on the sequel to this anytime soon. I've thought about it a lot, believe me, I have, and although I have the plot worked out almost word for word, I just don't think I can do it. I'm kind of getting bored of the Camp Rock fandom – sorry people – and I have so many ideas for other things – mostly Harry Potter if I'm honest – that I think I'm going to give Camp Rock a little bit of a rest. **

**I am so sorry, I know loads of you wanted a sequel, but I can't write very well about things I'm not interested in and no offence, but this is one of those things. I will finish all of my stories, don't worry, and maybe someday I'll come back and write a sequel. For now, it's really not what I want to do.**

"Uno!" Caitlyn yelled, slamming a card onto the table. Mitchie groaned and looked down at her own hand of cards.

"Come _on_!" She reached out to take another card from the pile. "Come on, you two," Looking hopefully towards Peggy, she crossed her fingers behind her hand of cards. "I'm trusting you!"

"I'm sorry, Els." Said Peggy, placing a card calmly down on the table.

"A plus two?" Ella pouted, lifting two off the top of the pile and placing them in her own hand with a scowl. "I hate you, Pegs."

"But I _love _you!" Caitlyn dropped her last card – a blue six – onto the pile of cards and leapt up onto her feet with a cheer. "Yes!"

She skipped around the table a few times before sliding back into her seat. Mitchie and Peggy were tallying up scores on a piece of paper, clearly unhappy with the results. Ella was texting.

"Well? Who won?"

Mitchie cleared her throat. Ella looked up from her phone. "Okay, so we played ten rounds. Ella came in fourth with three hundred and six, I had two hundred and fifty nine, Peggy had one hundred and thirteen and Caitlyn, after winning every single game, had a score of zero."

"Really?" Caitlyn faked shock. "I had no idea!" Then, she cackled evilly and doubled over laughing. "Rematch anybody?"

"No!" The other three snapped together.

"I only asked!"

"And you definitely got your answer." Mitchie muttered, scooping all of the cards into a pile and wrapping an elastic band around them. She dropped them into the basket on the floor and then sighed. "Now what?"

Nobody answered her. The weather outside was foul, the combination of harsh winds and viscous rain was rattling the windows in their frames and shaking the house where it stood. The four girls had managed to rendezvous at Mitchie's house before the worst of the weather set in and decided to play games from the basket that Mitchie kept under the stairs. The storm had knocked out the electricity, so the girls had been left with candles, torches, board games and stacks of different cards to play with.

"Uno, Jenga, Monopoly, Heckmeck, Battling Tops," Peggy was rummaging through the basket, attempting to find a game they hadn't yet played. "Trivial Pursuit, Carcassonne, Pictureka. There's nothing left to play!"

"There must be something!" Caitlyn sighed. "Mitchie, I know your dad loves his board games, surely he's got more than this?"

"Not that he trusts me with. The others have little pieces and dice and stuff that can't be lost or the game won't work."

"Great! So no TV, no games, no power and nothing to do." Caitlyn slumped down with her head on the table. "When do the boys get back?"

"Next week sometime, as soon as they can get a flight back from LA." Mitchie smirked. "Why, are you missing your boyfriend?"

"Oh, shut up. At least I didn't tell him I loved him and then start ignoring him out of embarrassment."

"How did you find out about that?" Mitchie snapped.

"Nate told me. Apparently he's been stressing about what it means and if he should be worried about it."

"Who, Nate?"

"No, Shane, you idiot." Caitlyn smacked Mitchie around the back of the head with her hand. "You need to sort it out. The two of you haven't actually had a proper conversation in weeks."

"It's none of your business, Caitlyn Gellar."

"Yes it is."

"No, it isn't."

"It is!"

"How is it?"

"I'm your best friend, so it's all my business."

"Right. Whatever you say."

Peggy watched her two friends bicker with an amused smile. The two girls had spent far too much time moping around since the boys left for tour, it was good to see them enjoying themselves for once. Over the last few months – almost a year, she reminded herself – she had grown apart from both Mitchie and Caitlyn as they grew closer to their now boyfriends. Ella had also been pushed away slightly, and that in turn had forced Peggy and Ella to spend more time with each other. While, in some ways, Peggy missed the way the four of them used to be, it made times like this, when they were all together, having fun, even more special.

They couldn't last much longer, she knew that. They had all started to plan for the future now, and they were going in different directions. Caitlyn and Mitchie were seriously considering moving to LA to study drama and music at college and be with the boys, whereas Peggy and Ella were much more comfortable staying where they were and beginning a working life.

"Peggy," Mitchie's voice broke through her thoughts. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine."

The four girls all looked at one and other and Peggy knew, in that instant, that they were all thinking the same thing. This could very well be the last time they were alone together, the four of them. They were splitting now, moving apart, and the time they spent together was precious little. Yet, even as they looked at one and other in complete silence, they all knew that they would still be the best of friends, even when they didn't live so close together. The four of them were inseparable. They always had been and they always would be. Distance didn't matter to the four friends, it was the time they spent together that mattered.

"The time we have to spend apart, will keep us in each others hearts." Mitchie whispered. Three heads whipped around to stare at her.

"I haven't heard you say that in a long time." Caitlyn said softly.

"I haven't needed to. When was the last time we were really separated?"

"When we were fourteen." Ella answered automatically. She sounded uncharacteristically serious. "You and Caitlyn went on holiday for the whole summer, and we only kept in contact by email for all that time."

Peggy laughed sadly and felt her eyes well up. "I'm gonna miss you guys when you go away."

"We'll miss you too, Pegs." Mitchie replied.

The girls each leant forward and engulfed each other in a tight hug. With the exception of that one summer, they had never been apart for more than a few weeks in one go. There was no telling how long they would be gone now, and every second drew them closer to the point that they would have to say goodbye.

"When are you going?" Ella asked through a mask of silent tears.

"We haven't decided. We're thinking of giving it a month to six weeks to pack, but the boys have promised us we can stay in their apartment until we have our own place. So as soon as we're ready to go, we can leave."

As they pulled out of their tight hug, it became evident that all four of the girls had been crying. Even Caitlyn had tear tracks on her cheeks. They might not be as prominent as Mitchie or Ella's, but they were still there.

As if to break the long silence that followed, Caitlyn's phone beeped. She jumped about a foot in the air and reached to her pocket, only to find that it wasn't there. She groaned.

"Does anyone know where I left my phone?"

"Didn't you put it down in the kitchen when you were trying to boil the kettle?" Peggy suggested.

"Oh yeah."

Caitlyn stood up and began to navigate her way carefully through the dark and into the kitchen. She could see the light of her phone on the table and reached for it. The message was from Nate.

"Are you okay? Why wouldn't you be?"

Mitchie's voice startled her. The girl had obviously followed her into the kitchen and was now reading the text over her shoulder and evidently just as puzzled as Caitlyn herself.

"I don't know, I'll ask."

She was just beginning to respond to the text when her phone began to ring. She answered it blindly.

"Hello?"

"Did you get my text?"

It was Nate. Caitlyn laughed. "Yes."

"Well you didn't text me back!"

"No, I was half way through texting back when I got this phone call from a freaky guy who wanted to know if I'd got his texts."

"Oh haha." Caitlyn knew Nate would be smirking.

"Why wouldn't I be okay, though?"

"I just heard about the storm and how the power was down, and I kind of panicked."

"Were you worried about my safety?" Caitlyn teased.

"Yeah, I think I was."

"What do you mean you _think_?"

"Well, you see, my girlfriend survived an earthquake all by herself, so I don't see why I should be worried about her being in a storm."

"Maybe she's deathly afraid of storms and needs her boyfriend's protection."

"Of maybe she isn't, and doesn't." There was a pause. "You're not, are you?"

"No, I'm not."

"Good." Caitlyn could hear Nate chewing something and wondered what time of day it was wherever he was at that moment. "Have you spoken to Mitchie about Shane yet?"

"Not yet, not really. I brought it up once but she turned it into a fight."

"Okay, well, I haven't talked to Shane either, so I'll do that later today. You having fun in your storm?"

"Not particularly. But I have discovered that Mitchie's dad has more board games than can possibly be healthy."

"You're at Mitchie's house?"

"Yeah, so're Peggy and Ells. We were round when the power went out and we haven't left yet."

"Would it make you jealous if I told you we were in Florida, in the sun?"

"No, not particularly. I've never much liked beaches and sunbathing. Why are you in Florida, anyway? I thought you were visiting your parents."

"We are. They decided they wanted a holiday and they're spending some of the money we give them on a month here. I'm not quite sure why they picked tourist season, but whatever."

Caitlyn laughed. "Well I guess I'll leave you alone then. You can go and see how many fan girls are hanging around."

"I can see far too many. And this is while I'm in _disguise_."

"Disguises don't work, I've told you that before."

"What? When!"

"Now. Anyway, I've got to go. I'll talk to you later, okay?"

"Okay, bye Caity."

"Bye Nate."

**Did anyone catch the Starkid references? One was mega obvious; one was a little bit more discreet. First person to tell me both of them gets a cookie.**

**This was kind of a filler chapter, I apologise, but I wanted to post something. It would have been longer but seeing as it's a Sunday night and I'm tired, I need to end it for a chance to go to bed.**

**I am so sorry about the sequel, you have no idea how bad I feel.**

****Spwarkle****


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